


Ride the Sky

by with_the_monsters



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: (everyone is of age though obvs), Age Difference, Discussions of stillbirth, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, F/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Slow Burn, We are about healing and nurturing ourselves here, past emotional abuse, past pregnancy, spoilers abound but want to make sure everyone can stay safe, tags will be updated as I write
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:07:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24437926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/with_the_monsters/pseuds/with_the_monsters
Summary: Elizabeth runs out of her life in the city and keeps running, right to the Valley. As she tries to sew the pieces of herself back together, she'll find herself weaving the pieces of others in there too – people she never could have expected could come to mean so much.
Relationships: Harvey (Stardew Valley)/Original Character(s), Harvey/Female Player (Stardew Valley)
Comments: 35
Kudos: 58





	1. Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> I discovered [elo_elo's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elo_elo/pseuds/elo_elo) absolutely sensational fics a couple of months ago, and ever since reading I haven't been able to shake the desire to write a Stardew fic of my own just to see if I can do anywhere near the justice they do to this lovely little game. (I won't be able to, but hopefully this will be an enjoyable read anyway.)
> 
> I'm still writing this and haven't published a story as I'm writing in a long time, so will try to keep updates as consistent as possible. Chapters will warn for specific triggers and I'll add them to the tags as they crop up .
> 
> Going to play slightly fast and loose with some aspects of the setting and characterisations (which basically means I want to give Harvey a different motivation for being obsessed with planes, and also I quite often forget tidbits of canon or need to change them for plot purposes so sorry in advance, but I'll be doing my best to keep it all as similar as possible). This is set in the modern day but I'm doing my best to keep the quaint, old-timey feel of the game.
> 
> Really hope you enjoy!

The trees back all the way up to the fence.

“Bit wild,” the mayor had laughed when he'd clocked the look on her face, pushing his cap a little higher on his head. “The forest's like that round here. Turn your back on it and it swallows up whatever it can find.”

Bet shivers now, trying not to look too closely at the darkness between the trunks. It's not like her land – _her_ land, the craziness of that – is much better. Young cousins to the monsters across the boundary have taken root the past few years, slender saplings weaving through the soil and pressing up towards the sky. Between them grows all manner of jumbled flora, brambles coiled threateningly around patches of winter-barren earth.

She wraps her blanket a little tighter around her shoulders. It's a threadbare thing, pulled out of a trunk just inside the door of the cabin. There's more inside, she's sure of that, but she hasn't been able to make herself look.

“We've kept an eye on the place,” the second member of her impromptu welcoming committee had said less than an hour before, giving one of the porch posts an affectionate slap. She was sturdy, grey rooting through the flame-red of her hair, two flannels layered under her coat. “Shored it up here and there. Got the electricity connected back up for you last week. It's not much. Your grandpa was always talking about the changes he wanted to make, things he wanted to add. Never did get around to it. But it's solid. It'll do you just fine.”

Bet had looked at the ground and not asked the question that had been snaking through her guts since the first heady rush of deciding to come here had ebbed away. Was it here? Did he die inside the four walls she was looking at? Perhaps the mayor had read her thoughts, though, or else been dwelling on it himself.

“He left it in a real mess when he went into hospital,” he'd told her, shaking his head, halfway between fond and grieving, “Thought he'd be back in a couple of days. None of us––“

“Well,” the carpenter – a bird, her name was a bird, but it fluttered just outside Bet's grasp and then darted away, gone – had said, lifting a shoulder, “Doctor Harvey––“

“But he always expects the worst.” The mayor had reached out, taken Bet by one slender shoulder and squeezed. “Sorry again, Elizabeth. For your loss.”

“Thanks.” She'd forced the word out, the pressure of his hand almost bowing her double. “I should probably...”

“Right.” They'd stepped back, eyes narrowed against the early evening darkness. The carpenter – Wren? – had cast one dubious glance back past her at the cabin, a solitary lamp glowing in one window. “Are you sure? The Saloon in town, it has rooms. There'll be plenty free. I could drive you down.”

“Ach, come on, Robin, she'll be alright. City girls are always tougher than you think.” The mayor had nodded at that, firm, like he'd learned it the hard way. “We've left food in the fridge and phone numbers on it. Ours, electrician, the doctor, anything you might need. We take care of each other here, alright? So you just phone.”

“Alright,” Bet had said, quiet as a sigh, “thank you, really,” and stood watching until the mud-spattered truck disappeared back down the track. And then the silence had crept in, full of living things unseen. In it, her shoulders began to unspool, climb down from her ears. She finds it hard these days not to think of the quiet as an ally.

She's opened the cabin long enough only to stow her suitcase just inside the door and to dig through the trunk. The smell inside is stale and dusty, the scent of places unloved and empty. She hasn't found the courage to take stock of it fully, this little patch that is now the sum of all her worldly possessions.

Instead she has been standing on her porch, gazing out at this impossible expanse of wilderness, trying and failing not to cry.

There's a rickety rocking chair on her left. She sinks into it gingerly and presses a toe to the floor, tipping herself back, forth, a pendulum swaying.

It's that late part of winter where everything is just sort of wet and cold, the damp in everything, only a few stray patches of green to indicate that spring might be thinking about coming. She read farming books all the way down here, the hard spines cracked open between her thighs, printing knowledge of seeds and growth and seasons into her mind by sheer willpower alone. It'll be two weeks before she can plant anything, that's one piece of information that has stuck.

She tips back and forth again, brow furrowed. Planting seems an easy enough task. It's the mammoth graft of making space to plant that now seems impossible.

Inside a pocket on her jeans, the letter is still folded up tight. Grandpa's writing, spidery and wavering, promising her a new life away from the city. Away from everything. When she first got it, two years ago now, she was newly in love, bursting with it. The idea of leaving was as strange and undesirable as becoming a nun.

And now look at her. Running faster than she's ever run in her life.

Her chest twinges. It's phantom pain, nothing more, but the breath still hisses out from between her teeth. Massaging a hand over the tender spot, she pushes to her feet, gulps in one more lungful of air. It's so clean it almost tastes sweet.

The iron handle of the front door is cold to the touch. She ducks inside fast so she can't think twice about it. It's very still. Someone's been round and dusted everything, straightened it up. Either they've taken some of the furniture, too, or Grandpa was more ascetic than she remembers from coming up here as a kid.

She fumbles for the light switch she's sure is on the wall here, fingers rasping over rough wood. At last she turns and peers properly, eyes narrowed against the last of the light, and finds it almost a metre below where she was expecting. That jolt hits her again, the strangeness of this place, how small and low everything seems when in her childhood memories it's the biggest place in the world.

Light floods the room and she has to blink against it. Bare bulbs, no sign of the shades. They cast an unfriendly white pallor over everything. It's different than she remembers in so many ways. To her left the kitchen is bare, thick oak countertops scored with knife cuts from years of use. There's a glass jam jar on the windowsill behind the great sink, a bunch of wildflowers still fresh inside it.

It's a little sign of kindness. For just a moment, her muscles forget to seize.

Then she turns to survey the rest of the place. It's no more than a cabin, a bare wall dividing the bedroom and bathroom off from the sitting room, which opens right onto the kitchen without a break. A single armchair lounges there, listing ominously. The windows are missing curtains and in the blue light of the evening Elizabeth sees the branches of trees wavering softly in the cold breeze.

She pulls the blanket tighter and tries to decide what to do next.

What she hates is that she knows what she's waiting for. She's waiting for Dan's voice to snap out from another room, asking her to do this or that. Telling her what's next, giving her the next task.

Deciding to come here was all she had the energy to do. Now she's here, choosing anything else seems impossible.

There's a table in front of her, just two weak-looking chairs tucked under it. An old garden set, white plastic, ugly and cracked all over. She fumbles her way into one of the chairs anyway and props her elbows up on the plastic. With her knuckles pressed into her eyes, she makes herself breathe.

 _One thing at a time_ , the therapist had said at her second appointment, the last one she could afford before she had to pick paying rent instead. _Break it down. Take the task to pieces and think about each piece on its own. Forget the whole._

Taking full inventory is too massive to contemplate. But her stomach is aching hollowly, and when she stops to think about it, she realises she hasn't had anything to eat today save the apple offered by the girl in the seat beside her on the bus. That was ten hours ago, give or take.

The mayor said something about the fridge, about food. She drifts over to the stocky metal box, has to put her back into it to rip the thing open. Her heart falls out of her feet. _Stocked_ , he'd said, like that does any justice to the neat piles of full tupperware on the shelves, the trays full of fresh carrots and shiny purple onions, the huge green cabbage nestled in a back corner.

The containers are all labelled with names – Marnie, Robin, Jodi, Gus – and Bet raises a trembling hand to press her fingers over the Sharpied letters. She realises she's crying only when a tear drips off her cheek and hits her arm. Kindness, apparently, is enough to wring her out these days.

She's still sniffling as she selects a random box and withdraws it, _Robin, wild root casserole_ , then sticks it in the ancient microwave. She can't remember the last time a stranger did something so thoughtlessly lovely for her.

As the green numbers tick down, she starts to go through the drawers, everything washed out by that harsh overhead light. She finds a load of mismatched cutlery in the drawer under the hob, fishes out a knife and fork.

She finds more while she's searching and has to close the drawers before she starts crying again. Old letters, bills, pens, tools. The detritus of her grandfather's life. The regret is a black hole inside her, eating everything alive. She should have come more. Should have known him as an adult, not just as a sticky child, four visits over four years and then nothing until the letter from his solicitor.

The microwave pings. The casserole is bubbling when she withdraws it. It smells of earth and nourishment, of strength. She eats it from the box, her legs curled up under her in the creaky armchair. She starts crying again halfway through, tears dripping down her cheeks and onto her thighs. It feels good, somehow. Cathartic.

Maybe coming here was exactly what she needed. Maybe this is what she should have done eighteen months ago.


	2. Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth preps for the day and realises she's left something important behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to try to hold off posting to space this out a little but can I resist? No I cannot.
> 
> Thank you so much for the comments and kudos on chapter one - so thrilled you guys are liking this so far!

She sleeps on the bare mattress, fully clothed, blankets unearthed from the wardrobe tucked around her. The heating proves it's working, clanking to life during the night. It's even cosy in the little bedroom, door to the rest of the draughty cabin shut tight, provided she stays tucked deep inside the bedding.

The very faintest hint of dawn jolts her out of sleep. Dan had blackout curtains in the apartment in the city and he drew them tight every night. She used to fumble out of sleep when the alarm went off, foggy and disoriented, her body screaming for a day-to-night rhythm.

She slides her phone out and finds out it's going on for eight. Later than she thought. She can't remember sleeping that long in – maybe ever. She sits up, stretches. The house is creaking gently around her, almost thoughtfully, like it's trying to figure out what to do now somebody's living inside it.

Out of one of her bags, she unearths a hairbrush. She sits on the bed to use it, the blankets pooled around her waist. Her hair is a hot mess after all the crying and now sleeping on a rough mattress, the bun she'd stuffed it into no help at all. She lets it down, pulling the mass of it over one shoulder to being to work through.

Dan was always on at her to cut it. Told her she'd suit a chic little bob, look kind of French. She could wear it with a red lip and neat shiny pumps. Of all the things, it was her hair she put her foot down over. Long and fair, curling at the ends like fronds of bracken, silky like a golden retriever fresh out of the water. When she works the brush through it, teasing out the tangles, it always takes her right back to being eight years old, her mother standing behind her with a brush in her hand, singing softly as she combed through the tresses.

Hair brushed, a little more light outside, she goes in search of breakfast.

The strangers have got that covered, too. On the windowsill, behind the flowers, she finds a carton of mismatched eggs, some with the feathers still clinging to them. She cracks two into an old iron skillet, eats them on the front porch by themselves. The yolks taste like sunshine.

It's a grey day, fitful white wisps scudding across a deeper, slate-coloured backdrop. It's not as cold as it was yesterday, but there's a dampness in the air that suggests rain both recently gone and ready to come back before too long.

With the food inside her, she feels a little more ready to face the day. She switches yesterday's skinny jeans for the only vaguely work-related outfit she owns, an old pair of dungarees she bought when they came back into fashion a couple of years ago. She's never been able to figure out how to wear them without looking like a kid. But who is there out here to see? She layers them over a thrifted sweater, one so big she has to roll the cuffs up three times, and then sticks her feet into the only sensible purchase she made before coming out here: a pair of incriminatingly unspoiled rainboots, the smell of the shop still thick on them.

She hesitates on the porch. She's talked herself into this, now. Prepped herself to get to work. But she hasn't got the foggiest idea where to start. It's a wilderness in front of her. The idea of trying to tame it seems laughable.

 _Break it down_ , whispers that voice, and she takes a deep breath. Okay. First, she'll need tools. On the drive from the bus stop, the mayor had said something about outbuildings, about things tucked away in them that'd probably come in handy.

Bet turns a slow half-circle. To the front, she has about eight metres of patchy, weed-choked grass before the solid line of an old, drystone wall, crawling with moss. Beyond that, it's just undergrowth. To her left, there's a half-rotted fence and the heavy iron gate that opens onto the stony track the carpenter's truck eased so carefully up the evening before. To her right, a thick clump of half-dead nettles and then the rain-soaked wall of something that might have been a barn once.

God. The second she opens the door, the whole thing will probably come down on her head.

But she just needs something. An axe, maybe, to clear out some of the saplings and brambles. Just enough to give her space to plant. She's not an idiot, has no delusions about turning this wild place into a fully functional farm all by herself. But she can eke out enough to feed herself, she thinks, maybe to make a little bit of money on the side. Enough that she can buy other necessities, pay for her electricity and heating. After all, it's just her here.

Her hands drift to her stomach and clench, pressing inwards. And then she's reeling suddenly, alarm flaring through her. She bolts back into the cabin and scrabbles for her washbag. It's still teetering on the back of the toilet, her toothbrush sticking half out of it. She digs through in increasing panic for a few moments then gives up, upends the whole thing over the floor. Almost-empty makeup goes skittering across the tile, her tub of moisturiser rolling all the way out into the other room.

The familiar flash of green catches her eye and she withdraws a half-finished blister pack of pills from the mess with a shaking hand. Twelve days left. No. This cannot be happening. She had three boxes of them, picked up specially, nine month's worth. An appointment booked back in the city for six months so she could restock in plenty of time, take the two days out to get up there and back down again.

Her eyes slide shut. She sees them suddenly, so clearly. Three innocuous cream boxes stacked on top of each other on the counter of her old rental, waiting patiently for her to pack them. Except she never did, of course. Never did because she's stupid, airheaded, can't get anything right without Dan there to help her remember.

She pops a pill out of its packet and presses the tiny thing onto her tongue. Swallowing it is like swallowing nothing at all.

There's no way she can get to the city and back in the next twelve days. They won't have an appointment, anyway, they were backed up for a month any time she tried before she left.

It comes back to her in a flash. The mayor, the night before. _We've left numbers on the fridge. The doctor_. She hauls herself to her feet, hurries over to the bright pink note. There it is, in crabby handwriting so uneven it looks like a child's.

Her fingers are shaking as she types it into her phone. It rings and rings, and then she hears the hollow click of an answering machine message readying itself. The voice is female, matter-of-fact.

“ _Clinic hours are 10am to 5pm. Please leave a message with your name and number or call back when we're open. Thanks._ ”

She glances at the clock. Still only 8.39.

“Um, hi,” she says when the beep sounds, “this is – I'm Elizabeth Dean. I just moved into Dell Farm. I'm not registered with you yet, but, um, I really need a repeat prescription. It's, um, pretty urgent. If you could ring me back and let me know when your next available appointment is, that would be great. Um, thanks.” She reels off her number, pulse thrumming, and ends the call still feeling shaken to her core.

She holds the phone against her sternum like a lifeline. It's going to be okay. It will be. They'll have an appointment and she'll get a supply in and it'll be fine.

It's all in her head, that's the problem. They won't get it. It took her long enough to convince the nurse she'd been reduced to seeing last time that it really was okay to prescribe it to her. _You're not sexually active at the moment_ , the woman had said, frowning, _are you sure you want to keep using it? The side effects can be––_

If it is all in her head, what difference does it make? The outcome's the same. She misses just one day of the pill and the hormones hit her like a sledgehammer, reducing her to a fractured ball of anxiety and anger. On it it's bad enough, the mood swings sudden and mercurial, but at least she can keep a handle on them. All in her head, maybe. She's tried telling her body, but it's been deaf to her since – well. Maybe even since she first met Dan.

Carefully, she sticks the note back on the fridge. And then she leans her head against it for a moment, taking a deep breath in. They'll get her an appointment. Everything's going to be fine.


	3. Encounters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth gets to work on the farm and meets somebody new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kudos and comments on chapters one and two! Good news folks... here we meet Harvey.

The barn is exactly as decrepit as Elizabeth was expecting. The roof doesn't collapse when she eases a splintered side door open, but the inside is a shambles. Thick with cobwebs and dust, dried up old leaves, the musty scent of fungus in the air.

“Yoba,” she says aloud, and immediately starts coughing on the dust. She scrambles back outside and hacks until her lungs feel clean. This time, she slides the collar of her sweater up over her face before going back in.

After half an hour of picking through endless piles, Bet has the sneaking suspicion that some of the stuff in here might actually be worth something. There's even the promising hulk of an ancient tractor, though she places its likelihood of it starting at about 0.2%. She's found a couple of surprisingly sturdy chairs and even threw a grey sheet off a rectangular shape to discover a solid wood table. Bet can't begin to fathom what it's doing out here instead of in the cabin in place of the fairly disgusting plastic number.

It takes her forty-five minutes, but she does finally find what she was looking for in the first place. She's got so distracted by this treasure trove that cracking open the box of tools is almost a disappointment, for a moment, until she remembers that's why she's here.

They look serviceable, from what little she can tell. The axe is sharpish when she presses the pad of her thumb against it, and there's even a thick pair of gardening gloves in there, tucked inside a little canvas bag and miraculously free of dust. She gives them a thorough shake just to be sure, popped up on tiptoes in case creepy crawlies flood out and she has to get out of the way quick.

She takes the lot outside to get a better look.

She wasn't wrong. They're well-used but there's no worrying splintering or cracks. When she picks up a hoe, the weight of it drags at her arm but the handle is warm, moulded to the shape of a hand.

For just a second, she feels the ghost of her grandfather's hand around hers. His rough palm against her skin. He showed her how to use this when she was seven, too small and slight to lift it even an inch without his help. They hoed out a whole row of soil then stuck seeds in, one at a time, covering them up as gently and tenderly as parents putting their children to bed.

She brushes an arm across her eyes before the memory can dig its teeth in and make her cry again. She has an axe, good. Even a pick, though she doesn't fancy her chances against even the most meagre of rocks. There's a dented watering can just the other side of the barn door, and she can probably like chuck it in the river or something to drown any nasty things nesting before she uses it.

She can plant with this.

With a nod, like she's convincing herself, she turns back to get the watering can from the barn. As she closes her fingers around the handle, a bizarre cry makes her leap halfway out of her skin.

“What the _fuck_ ,” she breathes, fumbling for her phone and flipping the torch on, swinging it wildly about. “Who's there!”

The cry comes again. It's low down, tucked away somewhere. Bet's heart is thudding like crazy. If it's a ghost, she's out of here. She'll crawl back to Dan before she'll stay somewhere that might be haunted.

Barely breathing, she goes to her knees. There's an old dresser set a little further back, its bottom drawer cracked open. That's where the noise is coming from. Beth crawls closer, torch held high, the blue light strobing across random struts of metal and curls of cloth.

She almost chickens out. But then she takes a deep breath and forces herself to look in that half-open drawer.

The relief is immense. A cat hisses at her, its eyes flashing in the light. It curls away, shielding something from her gaze. Laughing now, Bet leans in to get a closer look. Six kittens are bumbling there blindly, tiny pink noses twitching, so little their ears are still folded to their heads.

“Thank Yoba,” Bet tells the cat, and sits back on her haunches. “I thought I was about to get horribly murdered.”

The cat still seems to consider it a possibility, so Bet leans in for just one more look before she beats a retreat. It's scrawny, its fur matted, young if Bet's any judge of cats – which she isn't at all, really.

It's dumb, she knows. Projecting is stupid and stops you from dealing with your problems. But she goes back to the cabin anyway, paws through the endless stash of tupperware until she finds one that looks promisingly meaty. She plops it onto a plate and picks the vegetables out, eating half of them absent-mindedly as she goes.

She leaves the plate a metre or so from the dresser. Surrounds it with boxes so the mother cat will feel safe, maybe.

When she goes back outside and pulls on the gloves, hefts the axe thoughtfully in one hand, it's with the tiniest hint of a spring in her step.

* *

The clinic rings back while she's hacking away at a pernicious clump of brambles. Putting her thumb over a scratch, Bet is informed by a cheerful voice that they've booked her in provisionally for an appointment at 11am tomorrow, if that suits? It's the voice from the answering machine. Bet says yes, thanks, and that's that.

She feels like her chest has eased a little more open when she goes back to the brambles, chopping away with renewed strength.

By the time the afternoon is up, the clouds have parted and she's run completely out of energy. An hour of googling the best way to get saplings up has taught her very little except how shit the service is out here, and she adds _get wifi_ to her to do list before she thinks twice and replaces it with, _find out if wifi is possible_.

The woods are rustling. She's always assumed she'd find sounds like that creepy, unsettling, but right now it's just making her want to go in and look around, find the sources of those unusual calls that flute every so often through the trees.

She stands at the corner of the drystone wall, right where it bends away and disappears into a big bush. There's the hint of a path at her feet, the grass curling around flat, cracked stones. She wants to follow it and find out where it goes. See a little of the land around her.

It occurs to her with a jolt that she can. There's no clock here. She's not on anybody's time but her own; there's no furious manager who's going to be coming to lean over her shoulder and demand proof that she's been productive. No CCTV camera blinking red at her, just waiting for her mind to wander.

The back of her hand is bleeding again. She presses her lips against the scratch, holds them there. The blood tastes metallic on her tongue. She doesn't know what to do with it, this dawning realisation.

She picks up a sharp rock and weighs it thoughtfully. Her sense of direction has never been that good, but if she marks the wall and even trees as she goes, surely she can find her way back. She pushes her shoulders back, takes a deep breath. Moving here was about being brave. It was. So she will be brave.

* *

She comes out of the trees shielding her eyes against the low sun. She can't tell where the path has brought her out. There's smoke from a chimney coiling into the air not far away; she heard the distant mooing of cows a little while ago. It's been fifteen minutes down here, so she must have a neighbour within twenty minutes' walk. There's something reassuring about that.

Walking amongst the trees gave her a kind of peace she hasn't felt in a long time. She read an article about forest bathing forever ago, laughed at it when Dan plucked it off her lap and read out bits in mounting incredulousness. He'd tossed it back to her, laughing. _Hippies_ , he'd said, dismissive, and then given her one of those perfect evenings where she felt like the only woman in the world.

She was thinking about it, though, on the walk. Forest bathing. Walking into the trees and letting them cleanse you. She feels like a new person, emerging now into the afternoon light. Like she's just meditated for ten hours straight, her soul as quiet as it's ever been. The trees watched her passing among them like old friends, like they'd reach down and put a hand on her shoulder if they were only able.

Another corner and the hedgerow gives way abruptly to a spill of meadow, damp grass waving in the light breeze. A river wends lazily along the bottom, the glint of light giving it away. Bet heads for it, eager to find out if the water is as fresh and clear as she remembers.

Distantly, she hears the whining of an engine. She glances around and then upwards. There's a tiny plane chugging across the sky, a propeller on its nose, so small and old-fashioned it looks like a toy.

She watches it fly for a moment or two and then carries on to the river. On its banks, she crouches awkwardly and dabbles her fingers at its surface. It's cold but clear, the pebbles on its bed brown and the moss waving in the current. The feel of it takes her back to being six again, her grandfather crouched silently beside her, washing his hands like a baptism.

There's a sound like a gunshot. She rockets upwards, hand at her throat, searching wildly for the source.

Her eyes land on it finally. There's a man. He's dressed in brown and green, standing so still she hadn't spotted him against the trees. He's a little way up the hill on the other side of the river, facing away from her, one hand on his brow to shade his eyes as he watches the plane disappearing into the distance. She can see the flash of a handkerchief as he wipes his nose. A sneeze. Goddamnit. It scared her nearly out of her skin.

Her first instinct is to melt away without being seen. For some reason, she coughs instead.

He starts almost as violently as she had. When he whips around, the sun catches off his glasses.

“Sorry,” Bet calls, shrivelling with shyness, “sorry. Didn't mean to startle you.”

His hand drops from his heart, a wry smile twisting his mouth. “You didn't. Sorry. I wasn't – I was distracted.”

Bet pulls the cuffs of her sleeves over her hands and tells herself to be brave. To go over there. The river is shallow enough here, more a brook really, so she can cross without it coming up over her boots. And so she does, her heart beating fast in her chest.

“The plane?”

He puts his hands into his pockets and then takes them out again, shifting on the spot. Something about his nerves makes Bet feel settled, somehow. Like his shyness can help hers a little.

“Yeah.” He adjusts his tie, swallows. “We, uh, don't get many going over. They always get me. Which, uh, which way did you come from?”

“Up that way.” Bet waves a hand behind her, close enough now to stop and offer a shy smile. He's taller than he looked from down on the bank, tall enough that she has to crane her head back to meet his gaze. His jacket hangs a little loose on him everywhere but his shoulders, where it hugs the broad spread of them snugly. Something about his face sets her at ease. There's kindness in the green eyes, lines that say he smiles often and willingly.

Mostly, though, she can't quite keep her eyes off his moustache. She hasn't seen one like it maybe ever. It's a silver-screen thing, old Hollywood, almost, like it belongs in a black-and-white war movie. Before right this second, she couldn't have believed that a moustache like that could suit a man under 60. But he's well under – thirties, she'd say, mid-to-late, though she's never been much good at guessing ages. And the moustache suits him, somehow. Looks right.

He shifts again. “What brought you out this way?”

Bet averts her eyes quickly, turns instead to take stock of the view around them.

“Just wanted to have a look around, to be honest. Is, um, there anything particularly worth seeing round here?”

When she glances back, he looks away from her fast, his cheeks reddening.

“Uh,” he says, and seems to realise at last that he's still holding his handkerchief. He tucks it away into the inside of his jacket and says, “well, Pelican Town's not too far from here, if you haven't made it there yet?”

“No.”

“Well, it's not much, but it's home. The Saloon's good for food, and the beach isn't far beyond. It's nice even in the winter. Are you, um, in the area long?”

She would like to imagine he cares more about that answer than he wants her to think. Would like to read a little into the nervous way his gaze keeps flicking away, the awkward angling of his body towards hers. But she's done with fooling herself. It's not led to anything good yet. He is shy, like she is, and that's all there is. What would he see when he looks at her, after all? A cotton-puff of a girl, too skinny and pale to take much notice of, all angles.

“Yeah,” she says, an unearths a smile. It's a little dusty, unused. Her polite smile, for hiding every other emotion. “A while. I hope.”

“Oh, great. That's good. I might see you around town, then?”

“Yeah. Yes. I need to check this beach out.”

He laughs, hand picking at the button on his jacket. “Great. Well, look, I'm sorry, but I should be getting back. I've got a – there's a thing, I'm sorry, can't be late.”

“Oh, of course, I'm sorry.” Bet steps back automatically, shrivelling a little. He was only being polite. Can't wait to get away. “I didn't mean to hold you up.”

“You didn't,” he says, a little too fast. “It was really nice meeting you.”

“Yeah.” She allows herself a smile, small and tentative. “You too.”

She makes sure not to watch him leave. But she can't resist a peek after a few minutes. Tells herself it's just to see the route he's taking back to town, so she can try it out for herself in the future. To her astonishment, he's looking back at her, paused on the edge of the meadow.

They both flush. But then, after turning away hastily and then turning back again, he lifts a hand in farewell. Bet hesitates, and then raises her own hand in turn.

Even when she plunges back into the forest to make her way to her lonely cabin, she can't quite keep a smile off her face. 


	4. Digging deeper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a longer update this time, I really hope you all like. And a proper conversation between Bet and Harvey! Here's where we start wading into the trigger warnings in the tags, so please go carefully if you're at all at risk<3

Bet kicks one foot against the metal chair leg. She can't stop fidgeting, her whole body wound tight as a drumskin. The girl behind the counter keeps darting glances her way. Her hair – dyed, Bet decides, because the red is too true to be natural, too close to the colour of a marker or a paint – is pulled back in two tight boxer braids, the short tips sticking out above her collar like a cartoon character. There's something charming about it, unprepossessing, like either she hasn't noticed it makes her look like a kindergartener, or she's noticed and she just doesn't care.

Her gaze is very frank. Bet can't tell if she's assessing her or worrying about her. She knows she doesn't look great this morning – spent most of her second night in the cabin tossing and turning, full of anxiety and discomfort on the bare mattress.

Perhaps she knew this girl one of the summers she came to visit as a kid. She wouldn't know. Her memory for faces is bad and has gotten worse the last year, and age does strange things to people you knew as kids, anyway, stretches them out in ways you weren't expecting. The girl looks a little younger than her, anyway, maybe nineteen or twenty to her twenty-two.

Something pings behind the reception desk and the girl flinches slightly, startled by the sound. She looks at something Bet can't see and her frown lines deepen.

“You can go in,” she says, and her voice sounds so loud in the quiet waiting room, “the doctor's ready.”

Bet's quiet thank you passes unremarked. When she goes by the desk, the girl flips a page in her magazine and Bet gets a glimpse of a planet floating in the blackness of space, something about Goldilocks emblazoned in gigantic yellow print across the top of the spread.

The clinic is as tiny inside as it looked from the outside. She passes a small bathroom on her left, the walls of the corridor narrow enough that she can't stretch both arms out fully, and then knocks on the closed door at the end of the hallway.

“Come in,” calls a voice from inside, muffled by the wood. Bet has another strange wash of recognition, and she's still rushing to place it as she twists the handle. It sinks into her in the split second before he turns his chair around. The man from yesterday, from the river.

“Oh.” She stills, her fingers still wrapped loosely round the handle. “You're – it's you.”

He looks as taken aback as she does. But he recovers quicker than her. He's on home turf, after all, has the advantage of familiar ground. She's the outsider. The intruder.

“It's me.” His smile is wry, if nervous. He adjusts his tie as he stands, smoothing down the red fabric. He seems taller in here than he did outside, the neat white room making a giant of him. “We – uh, we never did exchange names, did we?”

“No, I,” she begins, then her tongue thickens in her mouth and she has to stop. Embarrassment climbs inside her like a vine, twining around her vocal chords. Her shyness seems to give him strength and he extends his hand.

“Nice to meet you properly. I'm Harvey – um, Doctor Nelson. But, just, please call me Harvey.”

Bet reaches out and grips his hand. He engulfs her, her fingers disappearing inside his. “Elizabeth.”

His expression clears. “Right. You're taking over the old farm.”

“That's me.”

“Great, well, why don't you sit down. You get home alright yesterday?”

“Oh, yeah, fine thanks.” She lowers herself gingerly into the chair by his desk. “It was a nice walk, back through the forest. Very different from the city.”

“I'll bet. The quiet kept me awake at night for months after I moved here.” He's smiling across at her, eyes crinkled. But then he twitches, like he's internally shaking himself, and a serious expression falls across his face. A professional face, the doctor in him taking over. “So, what's brought you here?”

He's staring at her expectantly. He's ready to help, for all the awkwardness. And this, she thinks, this is the first terrible thing about a small town, that a medical issue brings you to somebody you'd rather share nothing embarrassing at all with. How does he bear it? Seeing the same people he has to help with unmentionable rashes and humiliating problems day-in, day-out?

“I know it's a little weird,” he says suddenly, his hands moving from his computer keyboard to his tie to his lap, like he doesn't know what to do with them. “When I started here, it took me a while to get used to it – being neighbours with people I take care of. But what you say in here, it stays in here. Don't worry. You don't need to be embarrassed, whatever it is. I'm afraid since you just registered here, I don't have your files or anything, but we can talk through any history and figure out what to do.”

Bet takes a deep breath. It's fine. She barely knows the man, right? She can do this.

“It's – uh, I'm on birth control. The pill.” She knows she is blushing all the way down her neck. “It's to, um, help my hormones.”

“Right.” He swallows. “And you need a new prescription?”

She nods, withdraws the almost-finished blister pack from her purse and puts it tentatively down on the edge of his desk. He tries for a reassuring smile as he picks it up, but his eyes don't quite meet hers. Strangely, Bet is glad for the knowledge that he is finding this as difficult as she is. It eases the tightness in her chest a little.

He turns the packet over in those big hands, more graceful than she would have imagined him to be. His eyes are narrowed, flicking over the pack, assessing. He seems more comfortable already, sunk into the familiar push-and-pull of medicine. Like this, he can help her, his anxiety set aside.

“Did your previous doctor talk to you about your options?”

Her mouth twists. The answer is yes, but talking about the options isn't a fair way to describe that hurried first conversation, Bet's eyes screaming to the clock every thirty seconds, asking for whatever will be the least obvious, whatever she can hide best.

“Uh, a little,” is the answer she plumps for, and Harvey puts the packet gently back down beside her.

“Well, if you're getting along with this, I can write you another prescription no problem. But honestly, I wouldn't recommend this particular pill. The side effects can be pretty brutal. It's been known to cause everything from depression to nausea, sometimes out of nowhere even when you've been on it fine for a while, and – well, I just think you've got a lot of other options. Have you thought about trying something like the implant or the coil instead?”

She fixes her eyes on her hands, twisting together in her lap. She had asked about the implant, something tiny and inconspicuous that she wouldn't even have to think about once it was in. But her old doctor had warned, her eyes so pitying, that she'd be able to feel it under the skin of her arm, a little nugget of hardness that she wouldn't be able to explain away.

“I, um, they weren't really... that wasn't an option for me.”

“Okay.” There's the sound of rustling, and then a leaflet appears in the corner of Bet's field of vision. “Perhaps they might be an option now?”

She darts a glance up at him as she lifts a hand to take the leaflet off the table. He's watching her thoughtfully, eyebrows pulled down, like she's a puzzle that needs solving. Like he really cares about solving her. That brings the blush back, hot and pink, and she concentrates on the black and white illustrations of the implant on the paper in her hands.

“If you're using the pill to help regulate hormonal fluctuations,” he says, in that pleasantly deep voice, and the sound of it soothes her even as what he's saying makes her toes curl with embarrassment, “the coil probably won't be the best choice. It's very localised, so good if you want to limit what's in your system, but obviously not the best if you need to keep a handle on – well, you know. Is there something in particular that was bothering you? That made you go onto the pill in the first place?”

Bet's already shaking her head when she catches up with herself. He's a doctor. Her doctor, now. Her file's winging its way here in the next few days so he'll find out himself anyway. It would be more embarrassing to be caught out in this lie, to have to explain why, than to tell him the truth now. And why should she hide it, anyway? What does it matter if this man thinks less of her?

She digs her heels into the floor to ground herself.

“I, uh. It's – I was pregnant. But, uh, like nine months ago,” she begins, like the time between now and then isn't etched on the inside of her skull, an endless flipchart of the hours, days, weeks since it happened. She dares to flick a glance at him. He's examining her anew, eyes darting here and there, assessing, fitting this in.

Before he can ask the obvious question, she finishes, “It was stillborn. The baby. I was almost at my due date when it – he – just, um, stopped moving. They never found out why. They induced me the next day.”

In the quiet that follows this, Bet hears the distant call of a cuckoo in the woods behind the clinic. The sun is slanting through the window, highlighting motes of dust in the air. She feels abruptly weightless, like gravity has surrendered its grip on her.

And then he says, “I'm really sorry that happened to you.”

He says it slow and serious, like a thing he really means. Bet looks at him before she can help herself. His expression has changed utterly. No longer businesslike but soft and caring, like he wants desperately to take her hand, offer comfort, but is being held back by both his job and his own nervousness. She lifts a shoulder, almost a shudder, and looks back down at her hands.

“It's, we,” she starts, then swallows and tries again, “my fiance wanted to try again right away. But I couldn't... honestly? I hadn't wanted to be pregnant in the first place. So then doing that again, I couldn't face it. And I was just not good, really. I had the thing where, uh, you know, the milk comes in and it just hurts like, _all_ the time. And it wouldn't go away. So I just, I needed to make sure it didn't happen again, but I didn't want him to know. He'd wanted a kid so badly.”

It's almost the truth. Cousin to the truth. Dan had wanted her pregnant, had wanted to see her swell with his progeny, but it hadn't been about a child at all. It had been about binding her to him, about showing her that he could do anything. Could put himself inside of her and grow a new version of himself for nine months, sapping her energy, eating away at her insides. After that, no matter what she did, where she ran, she'd have this reminder of him, the marks of what he did all over her body, his DNA and hers melded in a child she'd never be able to escape.

Her throat feels thick and acidic. She swallows against it, the movement convulsive, and before she can register it Harvey covers her trembling hands with one of his. She looks up, startled. He's wheeled his chair a little closer, just close enough to reach, and his other hand is holding a handkerchief out towards her.

It surprises her enough to almost make her laugh, despite everything. “Sorry,” she says, taking it, “I've just – I don't think anyone's ever offered me a handkerchief before.”

He smiles back, eyes still pinched with concern. “Old habit. My grandfather always carried one. Don't worry, it's clean. Fresh this morning. My hayfever won't hit for another few weeks.”

She has to lift a hand to press it to her eyes, blot the tears away. He lets her go, scooting back slightly, but still closer than he was sat before.

“Sorry.” It leaves her in almost a whisper. “I don't mean to be crying.”

“You don't need to apologise, Elizabeth,” he says, steady as a rock. She never could have guessed he could be as sure as this, that nervous man she met by the river.

“So, um, you said the implant might...?” she asks, doing her best to don a bright tone, inquisitive and upbeat. It sounds off, like she's played a note sharp, but he's generous enough to allow her the change of subject without a word.

“Yes. I think it would be a good option for you, actually. I'd give you a little local anaesthetic on the inside of your upper arm so you don't feel anything, then it goes in using a special type of injection. You'd need to take it easy for a couple of days while the skin heals, but after that you'll barely notice it's there. And if you keep an eye on your reaction to it – your mood, energy levels, things like that – we can always take it out again if it's disagreeing with you after a couple of months.”

“You think I should do it?”

“It's your choice.”

She scrunches her nose up and he smiles. It makes him look a little goofy, younger, and despite everything she feels her body heat up, her pulse flutter just a little. Jesus. If she hadn't known she was lonely before, this would just about prove it. Getting hot over the first man who pays her attention.

“I would recommend it,” he tells her, giving in, “sounds like it would be a good fit. You don't have to remember to take a pill every morning, so it's less of the constant reminder. Plus, I've done a few of them before, so I know what I'm doing. Unsurprisingly, there aren't many women in town who want me to fit them with a coil.”

This time, Bet goes red down to her toes. His cheeks are colouring too, and for some reason, it makes her laugh, the unbearable awkwardness of them both. After a moment, his gaze assessing her, calculating whether she's laughing at him or not, he joins in, expression rueful.

“Small town medicine,” he explains, shrugging helplessly, and Bet laughs a little louder.

“It's going to take me a while to get used to it.”

“In some ways, it's really nice. You know, the two kids in town, I helped deliver them, and now I'm doing their check-ups and watching them grow. I really like that.”

“And sometimes,” Bet says, astonished by her own urge to tease, to see that blush again, “you're looking people in the face in the town square when you've had to examine an unmentionable rash the day before.”

She gets what she wanted. The red in his cheeks deepens, disappearing into his moustache, but he's still laughing. Behind his glasses, his eyes are fixed on her, the faintest hint of surprise in them. Whatever he was expecting from her, she has the feeling she's confounded him. She doesn't understand why that thrills her the way it does.

“Can you do it now?”

He blinks. “Fit the implant?”

“Yeah. I just – the sooner the better, to be honest.”

“Um, yes, probably. If you're sure?”

“I'm sure.”

“Right. I just need to check with Maru, see when my next appointment is, if you just –“ he doesn't finish the sentence, pushes himself out of his chair and heads for the door. It takes him half the number of strides to cover the distance as it did her when she arrived. He has to duck his head beneath the doorframe on his way out.

While she waits, Bet presses her fists into her stomach. She's not the fool Dan thought she was. She knows herself enough to know why she's telling Harvey all that she is, doctor or no. Why her hands still feel warm where he held them, why she's still got his handkerchief scrunched tight in her palm, loathe to return it. And all that is fine. Safe, even. If her heart is going to open itself for the first time in years, she'd rather it was for someone who could never be interested back. It'll hurt a lot less in the long run to fruitlessly pine than to be picked up and dropped again. And the doctor, who must be thirteen, fourteen years her senior at least, who probably has somebody already, because this is the sort of town where everyone pairs up – the doctor is a safe place to put some affection. To keep it busy, even, so it doesn't go running off somewhere it'll get her hurt.

He comes back in with a hand running through those brown curls, expression flustered.

“No problem,” he says, closing the door carefully behind himself. “I'm on lunch after this. So if you hop up on the bed for me.”

She does, feet swinging up, settling herself down on her back. The thin paper crepes beneath her, rustling softly. She feels horribly exposed. She fidgets her hands from her sides to her stomach and back down again, zinging with the uncertainty about where to put them.

He's opening drawers she can't see, clattering about. She makes herself take two long, slow breaths. When he reappears, looming over her, it takes everything she's got not to shrink away.

“Alright.” He unscrews something, lifts a threatening-looking needle. “Are you right- or left-handed?”

“Right.” She blinks up, breath shallow.

“Okay, great. Can you, um, I need you to take your cardigan off, please. Just the left sleeve.”

She wriggles out of it as he drags a stool around to her left side, his wheelie tray with him. She's careful to keep the cardigan drawn up tight on her right hand side. She feels flashy, vulnerable, with the thin straps of her tank top and bra curving up over her shoulder, the smooth white expanse of her left arm tense under his gaze.

“Right.” He hesitates a moment, then lays his hand down on her shoulder. Despite everything, the touch settles her. His skin is warm and the weight is reassuring. He mops a patch on the underside of her arm with a soaking cotton wool ball, the astringent scent of antiseptic making her nose wrinkle.

“How are you with needles?” he asks as he picks the anaesthetic up, glancing up at her face. He must see the answer there because he smiles just a little, kindly, and says, “I'd turn your head away, then. Makes it easier. Want me to count you in?”

“Just, uh, if you could just do—“ she begins, and then bites the words off as she feels the familiar burn-scratch of the needle sliding in, smooth and businesslike. A curse forms behind her teeth, surprising her, and she holds it in as hard as she can. When the needle slides out, she exhales.

“Sorry.” He's still holding her shoulder, just lightly, just enough to help. “I know it sucks.”

“Worth it,” she manages, turning her head a bit breathlessly to see what he's up to. It's a mistake. She sees the size of the implant, the device that will slide it under her skin, and blanches. Harvey looks up, sees the colour of her, and leans in closer.

“You alright?”

“That's – Yoba. That's huge.”

He looks down at the thing in his hand. “Yeah, I know. Sorry. But you won't feel it, I promise. Look, you feel this?” He pokes the patch he numbed once, then again, harder, when she shakes her head.

“I'll do it as quickly as I can,” he promises, “I would turn your head again.”

She does, taking short, shallow breaths, trying to hold onto her courage. She can hear him breathing too, long and slow, focused. Quietly, she tries to match him, to even herself out. The panic is biting down on her chest, warning her, and she fights to keep it under control. She almost leaps out of her skin at the first blunt pressure against her arm and Harvey's hand on her shoulder presses a little harder. She makes herself relax down into it, almost panting. It doesn't hurt, she reminds herself, it doesn't hurt, it's numb.

There's the tiniest pinch as it lodges deep into her muscle, the very top end where the anaesthetic didn't quite stretch, but as quick as it comes it fades.

“Got it,” Harvey says as she feels a funny sucking, the inserter being withdrawn, and when she turns her head again he's got another ball of cotton wool pressed to the wound and he's staring down at her, halfway between nervous and concerned. “You alright there?”

“Yeah.” She blows out a breath, presses her right hand into her abdomen. “I've had worse.”

“Told you.” He scoots back a little, still holding the cotton wool in place, and her shoulder feels abruptly cold as he removes his other hand to reach for a bandage.

“Do I need to do anything special with it?”

“Avoid a shower today,” he says, “and you should,” here he pauses to rip a packet with his teeth, eyebrows pulled down with focus, while Bet tries very hard not to look at his mouth, “not do anything strenuous, like I said, for at least two days. Give it a chance to heal over. And I'm serious about that – I fitted one for, um, someone else, and she had to come back the next day with it half-hanging out because she'd gone and played football with her family that morning.”

She manages a laugh. “No fear on that score. I don't have anyone to play any sports with.”

A silence follows this and then, uncertainly, like he isn't really sure that he should be asking this, he says, “So you don't know anyone in town?”

“No. I came here, like, a few times as a kid. Not old enough to remember really.”

“Hm.” His hands are still warm, pressing something that smells of antiseptic over the tiny round hole the implant squeezed into, wrapping a bandage around her bicep.

Before she can talk herself out of it, she asks, “Have you lived here long?”

“Oh, maybe six or seven years now? It's, uh, easy to lose track of time here. Everything just sort of – blends together.”

She's frowning when he meets her gaze. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“For me? Good. But I can't speak for everyone.”

“Yesterday, um, you mentioned the city? Did you move here from there?”

“Yep. Ran here, really. Tail between my legs.” He fixes the bandage in place and then holds the sleeve of her cardigan up for her to slide back into. The thoughtfulness of it makes her feel weepy. “My first placement out of med school was the emergency room. I hated every second of it, but they wouldn't let me transfer.”

“Really? I thought doctors could choose?”

He smiles, taking her fingers to help her swing herself upright again. They're warm. More calloused than she would have expected from a doctor.

“In theory, yes. But there weren't many volunteers to work downtown, and they took one look at me and wouldn't hear no.”

Bet steadies herself on the bed and cocks her head. She can understand where those administrators were coming from, even if she can't agree with the morals of it. Downtown after dark is not a fun place to be, and there were alarmingly regular news stories of doctors getting attacked for their troubles after this drunk or that criminal was dragged into the hospital. One look at Harvey, who must be at least six foot three, maybe even edging six-four, with his solid frame and those big hands – no way they would have been able to resist putting him on the front line.

“So how did you get away?”

His cheeks redden. “It's not something I'm proud of.”

“Okay,” Bet says, and grins, “now you _have_ to tell me.”

“There was this man who used to come in most nights. Homeless. A veteran, I think, although he never really spoke. The nurses kept an eye on him, gave him food, coffee, even a bed when they could get away with it.” Harvey's eyes are far away, soft and sad, empathy inside him obvious even to Bet. “One night these, I don't know, drunk idiots came in. One of them had a broken arm, they'd been fooling around. And they just started on him. Went on about how he was bothering the nurses, humiliated him, tried to throw him out. The nurse on duty, Rosa, she couldn't tell security because the guard on that night didn't like us helping this guy. So she called me.”

He turns away, cheeks redder, and Bet reaches out, astonished at her own daring. When she touches his knee, he looks back at her, uncertain.

“Tell me,” she entreats, and he sighs.

“It wasn't my finest hour. I was on the end of a fifteen-hour shift after a full week of nights, and my relationship – well, it wasn't in a good place.”

Bet nods, the short and jerky acceptance of a familiar situation. Harvey catches her gaze, just for a moment, and one side of his mouth pulls up in sympathy.

“Anyway, I told them to leave, and the one with the broken arm started going on about it, and then his friend made some crack about homeless people and I just sort of – well. It wasn't very doctorly. Suffice it to say the first man ended up with a broken nose to match his arm, and his friend with a few broken ribs. According to my friend at St Stefan's, anyway, everyone in Downtown refused to treat them.”

Bet's hands fly to her mouth. “Oh my _god_ ,” she says, breathless, “oh my god. That's so cool.”

He double-takes. “Cool?”

“Yeah! God, those assholes. I'm so glad you did that.”

He just stares at her for a minute or two, and then a nervous smile lights up his face.

“Not very doctorly, though.”

“Well, no.” Bet tilts her head. “But I can't say they didn't deserve it. I hope the broken nose healed really ugly. So you got transferred after that?”

“Oh yes. They couldn't let me go back. So they said I could either take a backwoods, nowhere posting and never come back, or be struck off the register entirely. Since backwoods was exactly what I needed, I took them up on it. Never been happier about anything.”

“Wow.” Bet sits back, admiring. “I don't think I've ever done anything so brave in my life.”

“You've moved here, haven't you? I've seen the state of that farm. Seems pretty brave to me, taking it on.”

She flushes again. “I don't know about that.”

“Well, I think so, for what it's worth.”

He's still looking at her, warm and sure. In the quiet, Bet can't help ducking her gaze away. Her arm gives a distant throb, and it's echoed seconds later by her stomach, this much louder.

“Oh, gosh, sorry.” She wraps her arms over her abdomen. “I forgot breakfast this morning. I was so nervous about getting here, finding the clinic...”

“No, no, please.” Harvey hesitates, then pulls his sleeve back to look at his watch. He returns his gaze to her and she watches as he debates something silently, his eyes flickering to her and away again. And then he swallows and says, “I mentioned the Saloon yesterday, didn't I? Do you fancy stopping for some lunch before you head back to the farm? I could introduce you to a couple of people, if you like. Give you a few more familiar faces.”

Bet's eagerness and shyness rise up in roughly equal measure. She wrestles with them both, trying to figure out which is stronger today. But then she thinks of the empty farm, the lonely cabin, her supply of tupperwares and solitary chair on the porch.

And before she can overthink it any further, she says, “Yes please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! The story Harvey tells about his stint in the emergency room is almost precisely what happened to my dad's cousin, with a few embellishments. He only told it the first time after he got very drunk at a family wedding, but it finally solved the mystery of how he ended up in a backwater GP surgery!


	5. Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Over lunch in the Saloon, Elizabeth meets a couple of the townsfolk and finds out about someone who might be willing to give her a hand on the farm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's been so long since my last update – lockdown hit me hard last week and I just couldn't make myself write. But I'm back in it now and coming at you with some new friends for Bet. I don't know about you guys, but every time I play Stardew I seem to end up making friends with all the 'older' characters (Marnie, Evelyn, Gus) before any of the bachelors/bachelorettes. Just wanted to play around with that a little! Hope you enjoy.

The Saloon is warm and cosy, everything Bet could have wanted from a small-town bar-slash-meeting-place-slash-diner. She's surprised to like it more than any cafe she's ever been to in the city, even her favourite airy picture-perfect ones. There's wood everywhere, homely tables, squishy booths. A gleaming refrigerated counter is stuffed with cakes too ugly to be anything but homemade. Her mouth waters at the sight.

“Hey, Gus.” Harvey has come in behind her and where she's stopped, hovering uncertainly, means he has to stand close to fit inside. She can feel the warmth of him against her back and, out of nowhere, she has to fight hard against the urge to press back and let her shoulders settle against his chest. Jesus. The past few months have made her pathetic.

“Heya, Doc.” The man behind the counter looks up at them both. His eyes crinkle when he smiles, his mouth wide and white in a nut-brown face. “New friend?” He's got a moustache too. Bet finds herself wondering absurdly if they made friends because of it.

“This is Elizabeth.” Harvey ushers her forward and she takes a few nervous steps closer to the counter. “She's Henry's granddaughter. Popped into the clinic for a check-up so I thought I'd introduce her around a little.”

“Well now.” Gus throws a tea towel over one shoulder and leans over the counter, bulk propped against the wood, holding his hand out. “If it isn't a pleasure to meet you.”

Bet feels the gentlest of pressure between her shoulder blades and glances back to find Harvey smiling down at her reassuringly, one hand softly encouraging her forwards. With a swallow, she moves closer to Gus and reaches out to return his handshake.

“It's nice to meet you too.”

“So great to have a new face around. You bringing that old place back to life?” Gus' grip is firm, and he closes his other hand around hers to hold the shake a little. “It'll be lovely to have a working farm again. Your grandfather, he used to bring in the freshest greens, my lord. People would come here and ask for them, nothing on the side.”

Despite herself, Bet smiles. “Well, I can't promise anything, but I'm going to try.”

“I can already tell you've got his touch.” Gus pats her hand one more time and then lets her go, instantly active, doing something complicated with a coffee machine and rooting out two menus to give them. “What are you thinking of doing with the place?”

“I haven't really, uh, thought much.” She takes the menus and, shyly, turns to offer one to Harvey. He startles a little, but then reaches out and takes it, the corners of his moustache twitching with a smile.

“Well, your grandfather never seemed to have much of a plan. Just went with the wind, it felt like.” Gus puts a black coffee down on the counter, pushing it towards Harvey. “One year out of nowhere he packed Marnie into his old truck and drove the both of them three hours to the livestock auctions. Came back with three pigs, a cow and a sheep. Said he was going into animal husbandry. Six months later he comes in steaming because the cow's got into his kale, he's tried to shear the sheep and it looks like shit, and he loves the pigs too much to kill them. God, we all howled about that. He kept those pigs for years, never could bear to send them off for sausages. They died of old age to a man – a pig – and he swore he'd never have animals again, but then went around grousing about how much worse the ground was without animals on it and how much he missed having them around the farm. Were you here for that, Doc?”

Harvey's stepped around Bet to pick up his coffee. He props himself on one of the tall bar stools and pushes the one beside him back for her. She slides onto it, shy again, careful to angle herself so they don't touch.

“Not for the great arrival,” Harvey says, grinning, “but I remember the day the last pig died. He called me out there to try to resuscitate it. I was still quite new to town so I hadn't learn how to say no in a way he'd listen to. I told him even a vet wouldn't be able to help but somehow I still ended up out there for an hour trying to do CPR on a pig.”

Gus roars with laughter at that, hands folded over his belly. It's so infectious, so fond, that Bet can't help joining in. She shares a look with Harvey, his eyes glittering with amusement behind his glasses, and feels another dangerous rush of heat. Desperately hoping she's not blushing, she stares down at the menu, the words swimming before her eyes.

“Right!” says Gus, “sorry, you came in for food. The usual, Doc?”

“Please.” Harvey takes another sip of his coffee, pushing the menu back towards Gus.

“Sorry,” says Bet, feeling the first stirrings of panic. Dan always hated it when she couldn't decide, would drum his fingers louder and louder on the table until she tied herself in knots and chose something at random that she was sure to hate.

Harvey murmurs, “Take your time. Do you want some help deciding?”

Helpless, hating herself for it, Bet nods. He reaches out, slides her menu closer to himself. “What kind of food do you like?”

“Um, what are you having?”

“You don't want what he's having.” Gus has bustled back over and thrusts a coffee on her, setting cream and sugar down beside it. “Healthy nonsense.”

“A lack of carbohydrate isn't nonsense, Gus—“

“Healthy nonsense,” Gus repeats solemnly to Bet, then drops her a wink, “doctors, hey? Never trust a man who doesn't eat potatoes.”

“I _eat_ potatoes.” Harvey sounds weary but fond, clearly a well-worn argument. “I just don't need them fried with every meal.”

“Doctor Harvey, you're a smart man, but in this case, I'm afraid you're just wrong.” Gus picks up the menu and taps it, the plastic corners rapping against the counter. “So, Elizabeth, what's your favourite dish?”

“Oh, um, I don't really know. Pasta, maybe?”

“Excellent. See, carb,” Gus says pointedly to Harvey, expression wicked, and then turns back to Bet. “Spicy? Non-spicy?”

“Uh, I prefer non-spicy. Spice doesn't really agree with me.” She shifts, unwilling to admit the truth, which is that even mild spice can have her hiccoughing, eyes and nose streaming.

Gus leans in, intent. “Cheese?”

“I love cheese.”

“Got it. I know just the thing.” With that, he bustles off, pushes his way through a door and disappears briefly from sight. He reappears in the kitchen, visible through a long rectangle cut out of the wall, and the sound of water sloshing into pans and his singing soon floats out of the other room.

Bet turns to Harvey feeling slightly shell-shocked.

“I know,” he says on a laugh, seeing the look on her face. “Small towns. You'll be used to it before you know it.”

Picking at her cuffs, she admits, “I was a little overwhelmed when I saw my fridge. In the best way, I mean. Everyone had filled it up. I've never known people do something like that for a total stranger.”

“It's that kind of place.” His eyes crinkle when he smiles at her. “But you'll get even better treatment than most. Everybody loved your grandfather round here.”

“He was a good man.”

“Did you visit him much?”

Ashamed, Bet drops her gaze. Her fingers wind into each other, pulling white. “No. I came a few times as a kid, but, um, my dad died when I was eight. Mom moved us north after that and it was too expensive to get back.”

“I'm sorry to hear that. But I can understand it. My parents split when I was a teenager. I've barely seen my mom since.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.”

He smiles. “Don't be. She wasn't a particularly nice person.”

“Families, huh?”

“Families,” he agrees, and picks up his mug of coffee. Bet reaches for her own, ladles sugar and cream in, wraps her hand through the handle. The mugs are the same size, but his is barely visible now he's holding it. She likes his hands, she thinks, with a rush of heat to her face. Long fingers, elegant, strong. Hands that know what they're doing. Abruptly embarrassed, she takes a too-big gulp of coffee and has to hide a wince as it burns the roof of her mouth.

She's floundering for a new line of conversation, something a little less loaded, as Harvey shifts on his stool. She's thrown off-track wondering if he's doing the same, desperately searching for something to keep her talking, to quell the awkwardness. He probably wishes he'd never asked her to come out. Here she is, offering nothing, too goddamned shy to formulate a simple question and ask it.

In a flash, she remembers the cat in her barn, those six balls of fluff, and she's about to mention it when the bell over the door tinkles again. Harvey twists around to see who it is and his face warms.

“Evelyn, hi.” He slides off his stool, close enough that the hem of his jacket brushes Bet's thigh as she leans around too. She gets a waft of his scent - good, sort of earthy, with a hint of antiseptic underneath from the clinic.

“Hello, doctor.” The old lady who's come in looks like a grandma out of a commercial. Her white hair is pulled back into a bun, a flower tucked into the buttonhole of her cardigan. Her mouth isn't smiling but everything else about her is. “Who's your friend?”

Harvey turns to look at Bet, gives her a hopeful smile. “This is Elizabeth. She's Henry's granddaughter.”

“Oh, of course. You moved into the farm?” Evelyn comes over, already reaching out to take Bet's hands. Bet lets her, sliding off her stool to be polite. Evelyn's hands are cool and a little dry, the skin papery. “It's lovely to meet you.”

“Thank you,” says Bet, cheeks pinkening, “you too.”

Evelyn steps back, studying her. Bet quails a little under the scrutiny.

“Goodness me,” says Evelyn, and her mouth cracks wide, a grin that has Bet smiling back instinctively, “you look so much like your father.”

“Oh,” says Bet, and Harvey makes a strange aborted sound beside her. It takes her a moment to realise it's a laugh, bitten-off as fast as it came.

“Oh, I don't mean like that!” Evelyn steps forward, casts a stern look at Harvey. Bet doesn't dare glance at him. “Not that you're manly dear, nothing like that. I just mean, your eyes, the way your face moves. So very like him.”

“That's what I assumed,” says Harvey, and this time Bet does flick her gaze to him. He's smiling into the rim of his mug, his eyes bright behind his glasses. It makes Bet smile too, and Evelyn laughs out loud, shaking her head.

“You are cruel to an old lady, doctor. Here I am trying to give the girl a compliment.”

“He's a cruel man,” agrees Gus, butting abruptly back into the conversation, bustling out of the kitchen with two loaded plates. “You here for the veg, Evelyn? It's in the back, came in a couple of hours ago.”

“Thanks, Gus. I'll go take a look.”

Harvey meets Bet's gaze as Evelyn heads for a small door at the back of the saloon, still smiling.

“Evelyn's lived here her whole life. A good person to get to know. If she likes you, you'll get more cookies than you know what to do with.”

“I can second that.” Gus slides a mound of salad leaves in front of Harvey, expression frightful, and then places the biggest bowl of pasta in front of Bet that she's ever seen. His disdain for the healthy option wanes in the face of Bet's glowing enthusiasm.

“I think this is maybe the most delicious smell I've ever smelled in, like, my entire _life_ ,” she tells him on a sigh, hands clutched at her chest. Harvey chuckles again beside her and she turns to find him watching her, eyes warm. He looks hastily back down at his salad, clearing his throat, and Bet has to tell herself very firmly not to read anything into that. She's probably imagining it.

“It's one of my classics,” Gus informs her, beaming, hands folded over his belly, “any Italian would murder me – I've mixed up a whole host of their recipes – but I'll be damned if it doesn't taste pretty good.”

He's not wrong. The first forkful is an explosion of flavour, fresh as summer, so good she wants to bury her face in the bowl.

“This is so tasty,” she tells Gus, reaching for her coffee to wash it down, “I mean, seriously. I don't think I've ever had anything so good in my life.”

“Well now.” He knots his fingers together, embarrassed but pleased. “You come back any time to have it again, you hear me? We'll get some meat on those bones yet. Feed you up so's you're ready to wrestle that farm back to life.”

She glances down at her slender hand holding the fork, the delicate wrist attached to it. She's abruptly self-conscious of the size of it, the birdlike fragility. It looks absurd when you think she's here to get a farm running, like she thinks she can take this frail body, still reeling from the past few years, and put it to some of the most physical work you'll find anywhere in the world. She's ridiculous, really. What was she even thinking?

Her thoughts flash and burn, all of them telling her what a fool she's being. Gus meant nothing by it, was just being friendly, but he's unleashed her terror, and she's not sure there's any getting it back in now. Her shoulders hunch just a little. Her next bite tastes of nothing.

And then another hand comes to lie besides hers, broad and strong. She stares at it, willing the tears back down where they belong.

“To be fair, Gus,” Harvey says, teasing lightly, “don't you think everyone needs feeding up?”

His hand moves, just slightly, bumping her little finger with his own. Bet can't decide whether to be mortified he's noticed how pitiful she's being, or pathetically grateful he's trying to help.

“I might.” Gus is bustling around behind the bar now, picking up plates and glasses, oblivious to Bet's distress. “But none of you young things eat properly. That Yoba-damned salad is a case in point.”

“Give me a break. I inherited my mom's genetics, okay? I'd be three times your size if I ate the way you want me to.”

As they banter, Bet makes herself take deep breaths. She's fine. She is fine. It was nothing, a throwaway comment, and she can handle this. Doesn't matter how big or small she is, the farm is hers, and she can do whatever she needs to do.

“You've got some wonderful leeks back there,” announces Evelyn, breaking up Harvey and Gus' debate about garlic bread as she comes back out of the stockroom. “Are the two crates on the right for me?"

“You bet.” Gus slaps a dishtowel over one shoulder. “You sending that grandson of yours to collect them later?”

“I can't. He's off with those high school buddies again.”

“Ah.” Gus shares a look with her that Bet can't begin to get to the bottom of. “Needs a steady job, that boy.”

“You're telling me.”

Harvey says, swallowing a mouthful of arugula, “Give him a break, you two. Unless he wants to work at Joja, there's hardly much going in this town.”

Evelyn sighs. “Sure you don't need another pair of hands in that clinic, doctor?”

“Hey now.” Harvey grins at her, easy. “I can barely afford to pay Maru.”

“You should get another doctor in,” announces Gus, putting another coffee down in front of Harvey without being asked, “you could double your patient pool, cover Applewell too. Full of old fogeys, it's a goldmine.”

“Thanks for the advice.” Harvey looks round at Bet, expression rueful, and she can't help smiling back. His expression clearly says _help me_ , but she kind of loves it already, the way they all know what's going on with each other, the way they all care. It's community, a thing she's never had.

“Um,” she offers weakly, and then coughs and tries again, “I mean, maybe, if you want, me and Doctor Harvey could drop the boxes off for you when we're done with lunch? If you have time,” she adds hastily, glancing to him. He's smiling, nodding already.

“Sure. My next appointment isn't until two-thirty.”

“Oh, well, if you're sure it's not too much bother?” Evelyn pats her hair, tries not to look too relieved.

“Honestly,” Bet admits, “you'd be doing me the favour. Going back to the farm means starting on the weeds again. It's such a huge job it feels kind of pointless even starting. And I've no idea how I'm going to get all the saplings up. The forest's taken it back so quick.” She manages to say all this kind of steadily, lighter than she was hoping, which is a relief. She doesn't want them to know how deeply she's panicking about it. She needs to get things going soon or she'll run out money completely. All she has is a tiny little pot from what her grandfather left her, the only piece of her finances Dan never convinced her to merge into his accounts. When she ran, she had to leave everything else. She tried one of her cards the day after she left and discovered he'd frozen them all.

Harvey's watching her thoughtfully. He turns to Evelyn, brows pinched. “If you do want to keep Alex busy, maybe he could lend a hand? He looks strong enough to uproot an oak by hand, these days.”

“Now there's a thought,” says Evelyn, tapping her fingers together. “Keep him out of trouble.”

Bet almost falls over herself to stop them. “Oh, I really couldn't ask. I mean, I really don't... I can't pay anybody. It'll just have to be me.”

“Oh, pay, nonsense.” Evelyn waves a hand at her. “You give him lunch every day and that'll be enough.”

“I really couldn't—“

Evelyn shushes her. “You'd be doing George and I the favour, really, my love. All that boy does is lift weights, toss a football from hand to hand and spend time with the wrong sorts of people. You'd be giving him something productive to do with his time.”

“But,” Bet tries, helpless, and looks to Harvey for support. He crinkles his eyes at her, reassuring.

“Well, let's not sign him up for anything without asking. Maybe you could float the idea when he's home later, Evelyn?”

“Of course, dear.” Evelyn pats Harvey on the hand, gives him a warm smile and then extends it to Bet too. “Don't worry, Elizabeth, I won't force him on you if he doesn't want to be there. But I think he might be open to the idea.”

Bet can't believe that. What kind of a person gives up their time totally for free to help a stranger with hard, sweaty work day after day?

“Right,” butts in Gus, drumming his fingers on the table. “Are you eating this pasta, Miss Elizabeth, or shall I just go put it in the fridge to let it get even colder?”

“Sorry, sorry,” she replies, and swings around hastily to take another forkful. As she chews, she summons her courage. And then she says, shy and quiet, “you can – um, my friends call me Bet. It's easier to say than Elizabeth.”

“Alright then. Bet.” Gus grins at her, rests his elbows on the countertop. “We're all friends, then, us four?”

She goes pink down to her neck. “I hope so.” She doesn't quite dare look at Harvey. But she hears him murmur, almost inaudibly, “Bet,” and she smiles so hard into her pasta it's difficult to chew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


	6. Blossoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bet gets some help on the farm and makes an unexpected friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taken a little longer to get this chapter up, everyone – I had some figuring out to do to get this moving in the direction I wanted. No Harvey in this chapter, but you do get to meet my second-favourite bachelor, so I hope that's something!

It's one of those clear winter days that makes Bet love the whole season. The sun overhead is weak, watery, catching on the frost-dusted spiderwebs that hang from the trees. The sky is a clear bright blue, clouds drifting across it like a watercolour. Winter in the city is never like this, never so fresh and full of promise.

She's got her hair gathered up into a knot at the nape of her neck, wisps catching in the breeze, her face still a little damp from the moisturiser she rubbed into it. Her skin's clearer than it's ever been already, away from the smog, like her pores are sucking in the freshness and basking in it.

It's three days since her doctor's appointment and lunch at the diner. She's made a little progress in the meantime, cleared enough space on the other side of the barn to expose a rotting wooden fence and a patch of what might be very good soil. Eaten her way through a few more of the tupperwares in the fridge. Her hands have blistered up and gone raw, but she's got a little masochistic about the pain. It's like proof she's really here, really doing this.

She's made progress with the cat in the barn, too. It's stopped hissing at her when she creeps closer with food, even if it does still tuck itself deeper into the drawer with its kittens any time it hears her coming over. Bet doesn't mind. She feels a little that way about people too.

Right now, she's standing on the porch, trying to decide whether to start picking through the barn again or to go for another little bit of clear land. The barn tugs at her, coaxing her to see what treasures might be hidden inside it. But her practical side is saying land, fence, trees. The gate needs fixing too; it's half-off its hinges and rusted almost all the way through in parts. But that's a task so utterly impossible to her that she can't even begin to think how she might fix that, or go about replacing the fence.

“Hello?” The voice comes from out of the trees. She startles upright, hands balled into fists. It's a man's voice, unfamiliar, confident. A clear tenor, that local twang to it she's starting to like a whole lot. She peers straight into the mess of saplings beyond the wall, tries to get a glimpse of who it is.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” says the voice, coming closer, “no wonder you need some help with this shit.”

He emerges nearer to the house than Bet was expecting and she takes an instinctive step backwards. To her surprise, she knows immediately who he must be. Alex. Evelyn's grandson. He's almost a polar opposite of his grandmother, all brawn where she's dainty like a bird, but the shape of his eyes and the fine straight line of his nose have Evelyn printed into them like she just photocopied them onto his face. He's handsome, no doubt about it. The features look as good on him as they do on Evelyn, that broad and lovely bone structure just screaming good health and solid dependability. He looks like every high school jock Bet ever flirted with as a teen, but there's a sheen to him, a kind of valley glow that says _I've never breathed anything but fresh air or eaten anything but hearty seasonal food in my whole life_.

He squints over at her, green eyes clear, assessing her, darting up and down.

“Elizabeth Dean, right?”

“Oh,” she says, and makes herself go down the steps from the porch. “Um, yeah. That's me. You must be Alex?”

“Yup.” He pushes his hands into the pockets of his letterman jacket, rocks back onto his heels. “My gran did say she was sending me, yeah?”

“Yeah. Yes. I just – I didn't think you'd come, to be honest.”

“Hey now. I'm a good country boy. We get told to be somewhere, we go.” There's something in his face when he says this, something wry and resentful, that tells Bet he's not a fan of this fact.

“That's really kind of you.” She edges closer and they meet in the middle of the no-man's-land between the house and the wilderness behind the wall. Up close, he's not as tall as she thought. Edging towards six foot on a good day, maybe, but the width of his shoulders and the circumference of his biceps make him look bigger. “Like, I'm super grateful you'd come, but you really don't have to. If you don't want to upset your gran or whatever, I can just tell her you were here and you can go do whatever.”

This makes him frown. “You would do that?”

She tilts her head. “I mean, sure. I don't mind. I didn't come out here expecting help. It's mine to sort out.”

Alex looks, for the first time, a little unsure. He studies her for a moment, his fists in his pockets pushing together, pulling the jacket snugly against his shoulders. And then he turns and surveys the mess all around, the slender trees crowding into each other, the thickets of brambles twining around their trunks.

“You've got all this handled,” he says dubiously.

Bet shrugs, manages a grin. “Not at all. But I'll get there one day.”

He frowns again, turns a full circle, does a critical assessment of her rusted gate and shabby barn and decaying cabin. Then his gaze comes back to her, darts to her thin forearms poking out of her sweater, the total lack of muscle evident even under her jeans and layers. Immediately, she likes that she can see everything he's thinking right there on his face. The honesty of it takes her breath away. He wants to take her up on the offer, that's obvious, but he also doesn't want to. Whoever hammered his moral compass into him, they did a damned good job of it.

At last, he lifts a shoulder, a casual shrug belied by the careful consideration that preceded it.

“I don't have anything planned today anyway,” he tells her. “Might as well make myself useful. What's giving you the most hassle?”

“Oh, wow. Are you sure?”

“Don't make me change my mind, Dean.” He grins suddenly, wide and easy, and Bet's abruptly sixteen again, in her cheerleading kit while the quarterback flirts with her, more friendly than with any kind of intent. The familiarity of it settles her. Boys like this never got to her the way the quiet, clever ones did. They're golden retrievers, too eager to please to have any bandwidth spare to mess with her head. With a leap of faith that astonishes her, Bet decides she trusts him.

“That's really nice of you, thank you.”

“Sure. I don't know much about crops and shit, but I can sort the fences, get all this mess cleared out. Shall we have a go at those trees beyond the wall?”

Bet hesitates, then surrenders. Her farm in his hands. Right now, she feels like that's a safer bet than keeping it in her own.

“Alright,” she says, and hands him her grandfather's axe.

* *

That first day something blooms. Not romantic, not at all, but Bet splits one of her tupperware lunches with him on the porch, then has to heat up a second one for him, because he gets through the first so fast and looks at his empty plate so sadly she just can't bear to leave it. He doesn't say much, and neither does she, but he shows her how to make cuts in the saplings and paint a solution he unearths from the barn into the wounds, gets her to set a reminder on her phone for two weeks' time when they can come back and dig them up dead from the ground. He doesn't laugh when she gets sad and quiet at the idea – even suggests they leave a couple to grow, healthier without all the competition.

Something about him just settles her. Makes her feel more like herself than she has since she was a teenager. So when he's washing his soil-covered hands in her kitchen sink, placidly soaping up and scrubbing at his fingernails, it's a hard thing not to beam when he says, “So, same tomorrow?”

She doesn't believe he'll come back until he does. And then he does again, and again, until they've got all the trees they want to get rid of marked and poisoned. The fourth day, he forces a decrepit truck up her overgrown lane and spends the morning hooking up a new gate, swearing at the hinges while she laughs and tries to hold them still.

“Oh, nah,” he says when she tries to press money on him to pay him back for it, “it didn't cost me anything. Joja's just bought up a farm over near my buddy in Oxley, they ripped all the fences and everything out and just chucked 'em. Going to put in those mega-fields I reckon. We went there last night and liberated as much of it as we could get our hands on.”

“Alex Mullner,” she says, rocking back on her heels, “did you _steal_ for me?”

“They were just going to chuck it out.” He's defensive, but not bothering to hide a smile. “Besides, it's _Joja_.”

“You make a good point,” Bet tells him, and goes to see what else he's got squirrelled away in the bed of the truck. A lot, as it turns out, fence posts and wire and a bunch of other things she's been worrying about being able to afford since she got here.

“Yoba. You really did a number on them.”

“Capitalist dicks.” He's easing the new gate back and forth now, hands rust-speckled and crimped white from messing with the hinges. “It was a rescue, basically. Found it a new home where it'll get taken care of.”

“Is that what we're doing,” she wants to know, “running a rescue?”

He turns to her. It's started raining just slightly, a fine light mist that catches on his hair and fuzzes the worn waxed jacket he's been wearing since he nearly ripped his letterman the first day. When he smiles, he looks about fourteen.

“This town does rescues real good,” he says, slow and sure, “just you wait and see.”

Later, he's helping her put the tools away in the old box she's found and lined up by the barn door. He's been favouring his right shoulder all day and Bet sees him wince when he lifts the pick.

“What did you do?” She hasn't got quite comfortable enough yet to reach for him, the way she would have before Dan. A featherlight touch to identify the discomfort, wordless sympathy.

“Oh, nothing.” He waves it off. “I like to lift. When it's cold like this I'm stuck doing it inside and my bedroom's a little small. Got the angle wrong and wrenched something last night. It'll sort itself out.”

Bet sees the opening and can't resist dropping in the casual question, “Have you asked Doctor Harvey about it?”

Alex grimaces. “Nah. He'll say I need to exercise less or find more space, and neither of those things are options. I'd just be setting up to disappoint him. It's been weak since I took a bad tackle in my senior year, anyway, there's nothing he can do to fix that.”

“Oh.” Bet hesitates, then lays the offer down. “If you ever want to come exercise here, you'd be more than welcome. It's not like I'm short on space.”

He raises his eyebrows. “You wouldn't mind?”

“I think it'd be the least I can do. All the help you're giving me, it's worth a lot more than lunch every day.”

“I've got a fair bit of kit,” he warns, “takes up room. And it should be under cover, really.” His gaze darts to her cabin and away again. Bet keeps the door to her room shut tight, ashamed of the bare mattress with the sleeping bag, the cold wooden floor. But he knows it's small in there anyway, has got to know his way around well enough to put the kettle on with his eyes closed in the last few days.

“Well, I tell you what.” Bet props herself against the truck, folds her arms. “I'll do you a deal. I need to plant this week, but as soon as everything's in the ground we'll get that little room inside the barn shored up and cleared out, and it's all yours. How does that sound?”

Alex stares at her, then grins suddenly. “Is this your clever little way of making sure I keep coming to help?”

Bet flushes down to her chest. “No! You don't have to help me ever again if you don't want to. It's a thanks, for everything you've done so far.”

“Relax.” He's laughing, reaching to knock at her elbow. “I'm just messing. Like I said, it's not like I've got much else to do.”

They have lunch after that, sat round Bet's dirty plastic table, the chair creaking ominously under Alex's weight. He shifts a couple of times, head cocked like a dog, listening to the way it groans.

“You have got to get some better furniture,” he tells her, shifting once more.

“I know.” Bet's perched nervously on the other chair, the weaker of the two. “I think there's some salvageable stuff in the barn. I just can't shift a bunch of the stuff around it to get to it.”

“Well, let's make that our task for tomorrow then. Oh, wait, shit – sorry, Monday? I've got a thing tomorrow and I need to help Gran out over the weekend.”

Bet finds herself absurdly disappointed. But he's here for free, she reminds herself, getting nothing out of helping her but... lunch, she guesses? She can't expect him to keep coming back.

“Monday's great,” she tells him, and fumbles for a grin. “Probably a good thing, actually, I'm down to my last few bits of food.”

“Hey, I'm a growing boy,” he says, and just laughs when she exclaims, “You're 23!”

When they've finished eating and she's soaping the plates in the sink, Alex propped against the fridge watching her, his expression thoughtful, he says, “Look, why don't we head into town? I've got some more stuff at home from Joja, so I can pick it up while you go to the store. I guess you haven't been there yet?”

“No.” Bet continues to wash carefully, with deep concentration. She will not tell him that the stress of finding the doctor's last week all but wiped her out. She will also not tell him that the thought of going back into town has been circling around her head since that lunch in the diner, of trying to engineer a meeting with Harvey. But each time she's found it so pathetic of herself that she's stopped herself, banned herself from going into town until she absolutely has to. It's a long walk back, after all. No need to rush into it.

“Alright,” says Alex, and picks a gone-over apple up from the bowl on the side. He eats it in four bites and wanders back outside, humming some unfamiliar song to himself as he goes.

It's four days since he turned up out of the trees. It's a strange thing, this feeling that she's known him for far longer. Maybe it's how much he reminds her of her teenage friends. Maybe it's just him, and her, something about them a perfect mesh. Bet doesn't know. But, she thinks, as she pulls the plug out of the sink, she's so glad about it. So very glad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. Your comments, bookmarks and kudos so far make this whole thing worth writing <3


	7. Branching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Elizabeth go into Pelican Town, where she runs into the doctor. When they get back to the farm, Alex has a proposition for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how I rated this fic explicit? Finally, that rating is paying off. Hope you guys like ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
> It's a bit of a longer update this time too to say sorry for the delay between the last couple of chapters!

The ride down the track's hairier than Bet remembers it being the afternoon she arrived. She has to jam a hand up against the roof of Alex's decrepit truck as they bounce their way from pothole to pothole. Alex seems unconcerned, one hand light on the wheel, elbow propped up on the open window despite the cold.

There's some thing strangely intimate about the inside of another person's car. Bet's used to zippy little vehicles in the city, all flash. Dan drove a sports car paid for by his office, so sleek and futuristic that sinking down into it felt a little like getting into a rocketship. This is a workhorse, built to last a century. The wide front seat is more of a bench, one seatbelt jammed and the other dangling some sort of additional contraption that has Bet briefly wondering if Alex is into BDSM or something.

Protein bar wrappers litter the dashboard and there's dog fur _everywhere_. Bet lifts a hand and finds it clinging to her sleeve, wiry and ginger, like a strange new fashion trend.

“Is it yours?” she asks as they jolt onwards. “The dog?”

“Huh?” Alex looks over, sees the fur on her arms. “Oh, yeah, sorry. Gran's always going on at me to get this thing cleaned but there's literally no point. Dusty'll just have it filthy again in, like, hours.”

He brushes at her sleeve jokingly, and Bet laughs and pulls her arm away.

“Dusty's your dog?”

“Yep. Do you like dogs?”

She thinks about that for a minute. “I've honestly always been more of a cat person, but I'm willing to be persuaded.”

“Cool. Dusty'll change your mind for sure. He's a champ.” Alex steers carefully around a particularly vicious hole in the track and then reaches over. Bet sucks in her stomach but he's just reaching for that strange extra harness, tugging at it so the seatbelt lifts away from her chest and then settles back down. “This is his. He likes to ride up front and Gran's convinced he'll go through the windshield one day.”

“A dog seatbelt,” Bet says, and bites back laughter.

Alex glances over. “What?”

“Oh, nothing, it's just – I didn't expect to see that kind of thing out here. Seems sort of city.”

He pretends to scowl, but he can't hold it and he surrenders, laughing. “Dog safety is not _city_.”

“Whatever you say.”

He shoots another glance at her, suspicious, but she's wearing her most innocent expression. It's one she wears well – her face lends itself to that kind of look, wide hazel eyes and freckles over the bridge of her nose. Alex narrows his eyes at her, then gives her a gentle shove on the shoulder and brakes as they finally come to the bottom of the track. He pulls out right, gears clunking, and Bet watches the trees flash past, the faded tarmac and the endless space around them.

“It's so beautiful here.”

He smiles, slow and sure. “It is that.”

“You ever want to leave?”

His hands tighten, just slightly, on the wheel. “For a bit. I still do, sometimes. All I've ever been good at is gridball, so I should go, really, if I want to get serious about it. Some days that seems really important and it's all I can do not to jet off out of here and go find a buddy's couch to crash on until I make a team. But then I think, how can I give this up?” He gestures out at the road racing towards them, the grey sky, the mountains rearing up in the distance and closing them in safe and sound.

“It's the most beautiful place I've ever been,” Bet admits, picking at her nails.

“Yeah. And, you know, I've lived outside of it.” At her surprised look, he clarifies, “As a kid. Before I came to live with my grandparents. I know what the alternatives to life out here can be.” He settles into silence after that, and Bet has got to know him well enough these last few days to recognise that as a thinking silence, one she'll struggle to break him out of. So instead she turns to look out of the window, watching the endless tree trunks flash on by.

* *

The general store's in the centre of town. Right on the main square. Next to, in fact, the doctor's office. Bet tries not to go too obviously pink at the sight, but her self-consciousness slams back into her like a wave the second she spots it, forcing her back into her own head when these easy few days with Alex have helped her relax out of it a little.

He notices. When she gets the handle of one of her canvas bags caught on the door he stands there and watches, smiling, for a second or two as she fights with it, breathless and embarrassed.

“Town not agree with you?” he asks as he steps forward at last and slides the bag free, pressing it onto her, still grinning. “Careful. You'll end up a hermit, and that position's taken in Pelican Town.”

“Sorry.” Bet fumbles for her purse, checks she's still got the cash she needs in there. “I just...”

“It's alright. There's no shame in being shy.” He hooks the handle of her bag over her shoulder and pats her once, reassuringly, on the back. “Pierre runs the general store and he'll introduce himself, fair warning. He comes off a bit slimy but he's alright. Just don't let him sucker you into buying more than you need.”

“Okay.” Bet blows a few wisps of hair out of her eyes, squares her shoulders. “I'm going in.”

“Atta girl. My house is just across the way – that big one, with the white cladding?”

Bet follows his pointing finger and sees it, a picture-postcard home with slate shingles and roses climbing up the sides a little further down the road. On its lushly green front lawn sits a pen and a kennel, a furry face already propped up over the fence, staring hungrily at Alex.

“And I'm guessing that's Dusty?”

“Got it in one. Come ring when you're done and you can say hi.”

“Sounds good.” Bet takes a deep breath. “See you in a bit, then?”

“Sure. And remember, if Pierre tries to sell you his special homegrown mushrooms, just say no.”

“Wow,” she says, “that sounds so ominous.”

“It is.” He holds her gaze very seriously for a moment and then throws his head back, laughing. Bet reaches out and punches him on the arm, not hard, but he still clutches at it and minces back, pretending that she's hurting.

“Oh, get lost,” she tells him fondly. At last, she turns to go and face the shop. And hesitates. Alex hops back into the truck behind her, but Bet's heart is hammering hard in her chest. The door to the doctor's is swinging shut, a familiar figure pulling it closed behind him, movements a little stiff.

She's frozen to the spot. She wants to go over and say hi, but she can't figure out how to do it without being a total idiot. She jumps a half-mile when there's a hammering behind her and she turns to find Alex cranking the passenger window open, leaning over the seat.

“What's wrong?”

“Oh, nothing,” she says hastily, but Harvey has already turned to look. His expression looks oddly fixed for a moment as he takes in her there beside Alex's truck, its owner nudging her between the shoulder blades with a finger to get her moving.

“Hey, doc,” Alex calls, and slides back into the driver's seat. To Bet he says, “Go on, get on with it, Dean. Be brave. You got this.”

“Right,” she tells herself, “right.” And then she pulls her bags back up her shoulder, gives Harvey a shy wave, and crosses the square towards him. He's fiddling with his keys, turning them over and over between those long fingers, watching her approach with an expression she can't read.

“Hi.” She stops in front of him and has a moment of panic where she can't decide whether she ought to shake his hand, which is bizarre because she's never once done that in her life. But she feels like she ought to do something. Instead she rocks on her heels, indecisive, and manages to unearth a watery smile. “I'm here to shop.” Yoba. Could she sound any more inane?

Whatever had him stood so still, he snaps out of it. “Sorry, sorry. It's good to see you.”

She can't help a smile at that, tremulous and sweet. “You too.”

He gestures with his keys at the retreating truck. “Alex came to help out, then?”

“Yeah. Yes. That was really kind of you, to suggest it. I didn't think he'd come but he's been every day this week so far. He's done so much.”

“That's great,” says Harvey, though his face doesn't seem to agree with the sentiment. “I'm really glad you've got some help. How's it going up there?”

She pauses, shifts her weight. “Um, good, I think? I mean, I'm not much of a judge. But we've got a new gate, got loads more land cleared. The books say to plant next week and I'll actually be able to, which I wouldn't have believed three days ago.”

“That sounds great.” He hesitates again. He's still turning his keys over, the metal flashing silver. “And you're getting on with Alex?”

“Oh, yeah.” She smiles, more genuine this time. “It's weird, I feel like I've known him forever already. Thanks so much, you know, for suggesting he come help.”

“You're welcome.”

Bet's smile fades in the face of his – hostility isn't the right word for it, but there's something off about the way he's looking at her, the tense line of his shoulders, the frustration in his eyes. Alarm bells start to ding, distantly, at the back of her mind. She clenches her hands together over her stomach, pressing them hard inwards so they won't start shaking. That familiar shrinking draws her inwards, shoulders curling, making herself less of a target. It's instinctual, animal. Trained into her.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, eyes darting down, fixing on the cobbles beneath their feet. “I shouldn't have – I didn't mean to bother you. I'll just, I'll get out of your way, I'll...”

He doesn't say anything. A year ago, Bet would have been helpless in the face of this. Would have stood there, head hanging, until the hammer fell. She's proud that she's progressed from that, a little. Enough to back off and walk away, hands pulling compulsively at the strap of her bag, heart pounding in her chest.

The first time Dan got angry with her – truly angry, screaming angry – she'd thought he was joking. Had laughed, breathless, until he swung his arm back and smashed the glass he was holding at her feet. She'd always thought she was the sort of person who'd shout right back, storm out, demand to be treated better. But she was sick with love, lousy with it. And later that evening, after he'd hurled himself out of the door to calm down, she'd picked the glass out of the carpet piece by piece, crying the whole time. Crying for the shock of it, but also the fear he wouldn't come back.

Right after she left him, she cringed every time a man raised his voice around her. But it's that kind of silence that really gets to her. The disapproval when she doesn't even know what she's done to cause it. Those were the worst nights. The one where she couldn't figure out what brought on the moods.

She swallows. Her throat is thick, gummy. She wants to fold herself down into nothing and get blown away on the breeze.

And then, “Wait, wait,” Harvey says, and footsteps hurry up behind her, catching her metres from the door of the shop. “I'm sorry, I'm really – I don't know what's got into me. I got called out last night, couldn't get back to sleep afterwards. I think I'm way more tired than I thought. But that's no excuse for rudeness and – well. I'm sorry.”

Still feeling a little unmoored, Bet flicks a glance up at him and back down. He's got a hand out, reaching for her, but not quite daring to touch. He looks so very concerned.

“It's alright,” she tells him, soft as a sigh. “I shouldn't have bothered you.”

“No, no, it's not that at all. You weren't bothering me, not even slightly. I was just... being an idiot, I guess.”

Bet can't think of anything to say. Her thoughts are slow and gloopy like syrup. It's so embarrassing, how fast she regresses to that scared little punching bag who had to flee a bad situation like a thief in the night. She doesn't want him to see her like this. Out here, in Pelican Town, she can be anybody. Brave, strong, capable. A woman capable of nursing an ailing farm back to life. The absolute last thing she wants to be is herself.

She just stares at his feet instead, dumb. His brogues are brown suede, sharp as you like. They look like he buffed them this morning. She wonders if he did it in those sleepless pre-dawn hours, shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow, coffee curling steam into the air at his side.

“Look.” There's a flicker of movement in the corner of her vision, his hands spreading wide. “I've been meaning to ring you, actually. See how you're finding the––“

She looks up as he gestures at her arm, wordless. He looks very uncertain, face a little red, mouth thinned into a nervous line beneath his moustache.

“If you have time over the next couple of days, maybe you could come into the clinic and I can do a check-up?”

“Oh.” She leans backwards, indecisive. “If it wouldn't be too much trouble?”

“Not at all.”

“Okay. Um, I can do tomorrow?”

“Great. How about three?”

Bet pushes her hair back behind one ear, tries to read the look on his face. “Three's fine.”

“Well, good. I'll see you then.”

She nods, still uncertain. He's hovering like there's something else he wants to say. He's started twisting the keys again. She tilts her head unconsciously, a wordless prompt to encourage him. At last, defeated, he drops his gaze.

“Um, just so you know – just for, uh, reference, I guess – it was in the leaflet but I should have said, you, um, the implant's not effective for a week after going in. Just so you know.”

Bet goes red down to her knees. “Right. Thanks.”

“Sure. No problem. Sorry I didn't say before. Are you – is that okay?”

Bet's gone fully past uncertain and landed in plain bewilderment. “Um, yes? Would it not be?”

“Oh, no, I just,” he says helplessly, and hunches his shoulders. “That's fine then.”

“Okay.” She's just staring at him now, trying to make head or tail of this bizarre interaction. “Cool. I should probably... go?”

“Sure, sure.” He forces himself to straighten up, waves her off. “See you tomorrow, then.”

“Yep.” She turns to go, still trying to work it all out, and glances back over her shoulder before she puts her hands out to open the general store's glass door. He's walking in the other direction, posture a little slumped, fists tight at his sides.

It's oddly reassuring. Maybe she's not the only one in this town whose head sometimes trips her up.

* *

On the way back to the farm, her groceries littering the back seat of the truck, Bet's trying to recover from both the strange conversation with Harvey and meeting Pierre. He'd all but thrown out a welcoming red carpet for her, insisted on walking around with her and advising her on the best produce and products. Despite his overeager company, she liked the store. It felt like one of those Aladdin's caves where you could find anything you wanted, if only you dug deep enough. She's even unearthed some sunflower-covered bedding to replace the sleeping bag and blankets, and found a couple of light shades in the used section at the back. She's promised to go back next week for seeds and not even think about sidling over to Joja instead.

Alex is even quieter than he was on the drive into town. He's clearly got something on his mind. Bet's trying to work out what it could be, and at last tentatively says, “Dusty's really cute.”

He drags himself out of his thoughts and says, “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Thanks for introducing me. Think I scared him a little.”

“He's not great with strangers. He'll warm up to you. Think he'd be better if I could just let him run about and explore, but I don't like to leave my grandparents with that responsibility when I'm gone.”

Before she even thinks twice about it, Bet suggests, “Well, you'd be welcome to bring him up to the farm with you when you come.” Not being great with strangers, she can relate to that. Maybe she and Dusty could get along okay if they got to know each other.

“Seriously?” Alex has switched fully into the conversation now, one hand on the gear stick, expression cracked open with hope. “You wouldn't mind?”

“Course not. It'd be good, actually, to have a dog around. Make it feel more alive I reckon. Maybe, though, if you just help me rig some kind of fence around the kittens, that would be all. Just so he doesn't frighten them.”

“Yeah, yeah, no problem.” Alex looks more animated than she's ever seen him. “That's awesome. Thanks so much. He'll love it, all that empty space to poke around in.”

“He can earn his keep.” Bet presses her shoulders back into the furry seat, grins. “Pretty sure there's a rat or two about. He can keep them down so I never have to see one in my life.”

“Sounds like a deal,” says Alex, laughing. He keeps glancing over at her, almost surprised, like she's done something he never would have expected.

Later, back on the farm, Bet's digging around in a big box looking for some cabling she could swear she spotted the other day. Alex is outside having another go at some brambles that have colonised a patch on the other side of the wall. She left him with his jacket slung over the stone, arms glistening, hacking away with a scowl. She's got the sense he's been thinking hard about something since the truck, and she's left him to work through it.

Whatever it was, he seems to reach a conclusion around four. The distant sounds of the axe thudding and brambles being ripped halts abruptly, and then she hears his footsteps mosey on around to the barn door. She continues, delicately, picking through the pile of junk in the box, until she hears him come to a halt at the entrance.

“Don't take this the wrong way.” He's leaning up against the doorframe, rubbing his thumb over one eyebrow. “But, like, would you ever want to fuck?”

Bet freezes, still halfway into the box. “You mean, like, you?”

He shifts. “Well – yeah. I guess.”

“Do you,” she starts, and then closes the box. “I mean, do you even fancy me?”

“Sure. You're really pretty.”

“Okay,” she says, and does no good at pretending to herself it doesn't make her feel good to hear that. “But you don't, like, want to date me?”

He grins suddenly, and the expression disarms her on the spot. Somehow, that grin makes the awkwardness of his question flee, leaves her feeling unexpectedly open to the idea. She thought he was attractive the first time she met him, and the week since has helped her lean into that, the slow blooming of his personality enough to leave her as comfortable around him as she's been around anyone in years. This, maybe, could be something good. No entanglements, no risk of anything deeper and more dangerous.

“No offence,” he says, still grinning, “but it's pretty obvious you're not into me like that.”

“Well, I mean, you're hot.”

“Yeah.” There's no hesitation, but no arrogance in it either. Just acknowledgement of the truth. “You are too. And I like you a whole lot as a friend. But, I mean, like, neither of us are interested in, like, a relationship? With each other?”

Bet folds her arms. “You sound pretty sure about that.”

“Yoba. You're going to make me come out and say it.”

“Say what?”

“Bet. When you saw the doctor earlier you perked up like Dusty faced with the prospect of steak.”

Bet's cheeks flame brightly scarlet. “I did _not_.”

“It's alright.” He's laughing now, even teeth very white against his tan. He unprops himself from the doorframe at last, takes a few steps into the barn's dim interior. “You know I'm not going to judge you.”

“You – I––“

“It's cool, man. Like, you do you. I'm just saying, you're not making a move for whatever reason––“

“He wouldn't be interested."

Alex pauses, gives her a long slow look. “Sure. Alright. But the fact is, you're not dating anyone. And I'm not dating anyone, and haven't been for ages. And one-night-stands aren't really, like, a possible thing out here. So it just seems like we could help each other out.”

“Like lending a cup of sugar to a neighbour.”

He cracks another grin. “Sure.”

"Jeez. You country folk." Bet hauls in a deep breath, holds it behind her teeth. “So how would this work, then?”

“Oh, wow, so like – you'd be into it?”

“Maybe.” She shrugs one shoulder. “Wait, why did you ask if you didn't think––“

“I don't know, really. I was chancing my luck, to be honest. You were cool about Dusty, and like... I don't know. I just got a vibe.”

“Yoba. You're an idiot.”

“That's me.” He comes over, purposeful. He's nothing Bet ever would have considered for sex before, too familiar, too much like those high school jocks who felt more like brothers than anything else by the end of her senior year, all their firsts and secrets tangled up in each other. But she knows him, now, probably better than anyone else in this town. Knows there's more to him than meets the eye. And she's always liked sex. Been a little ashamed of that fact, in the past, but is struggling to feel any shame now, with him, all his matter-of-factness soothing her usual nerves.

When he's standing a foot away, Bet puts up a hand and brings him to a sudden halt.

“If either of us decide to stop, we stop, yeah?” She can't look him in the eye when she says it, for all that she's trying to sound authoritative. “Like, if I say no, it's no.”

His brows furrow. “Well, obviously. Jesus, who do you think I am?”

“No, it's not – it's just, I need to know.”

“Bet. Listen.” He reaches out now, takes her firmly by the shoulders. His thumbs press over her collarbones, strong and sure. “You call the shots, alright? You.” He underlines this with a nod, gaze intent on her.

“Alright,” she says softly, and meets his eyes at last. “Thank you.”

“Thank me? Fucking hell. Thank _you_.” He grins, taps her nose with the end of one finger to make her laugh, then steps back, stretching. “So, where do you want to do this?”

“Oh, wait, like right now?”

“Sure. I mean, unless you'd rather go back to farm work?”

Her nose scrunches up. “No thanks. It's just, I mean, I haven't shaved in like, I mean literally months. And I'm all sweaty and muddy, and––“

Alex is laughing, shaking his head. When she glares at him, he holds both hands up in surrender.

“I'm going to be real with you. It's, like, eighteen months since I actually had sex. First time around it'll be a miracle if I last even three minutes, so maybe save the shave and shower and everything until I can take my time?”

“So, what?” Bet pushes her hair back behind her ears. “Just get mud all over my bed?”

She sucks in a breath. He's moved closer, right inside her space. He leans in near enough that she can feel the warmth of his breath on her face. His hands, with immense surety, come to rest on her hips.

“Or,” he says, and applies pressure there, turning her neatly and pulling her gently back ino him. He doesn't finish the sentence. He doesn't need to. Bet can feel the hard length of him against her ass. Her body responds immediately, a delicious shiver shooting through her that pools, sweet and insistent, in an ache between her thighs.

“Now I'm no doctor,” he says against her ear, which makes her laugh and pretend to pull away, “but I think I still have the basics of anatomy down.”

His hands move from her hips. One slides over her stomach and then upwards, over her ribs, to the soft round shape of her breast. Bet melts back against him as he slips beneath the elastic of her bra and cups her, thumbing over her nipple. It stiffens immediately under his touch. She can't help a sigh, wistful and delighted. It's funny, how good it feels to be touched after so long as an island. She presses back against him. He groans in her ear, deep and low.

And then he says, suddenly, “Shit, hang on,” and his hands stop so fast she could kill him. “Do you have any condoms?”

“No. I didn't – I mean, this wasn't on the agenda.”

“ _Fuck_.” He tweaks her nipple again sadly, making her hiss with pleasure. “I guess I could get some for another time, or––“

“Well, I mean, I've got the implant, so you won't knock me up. It's been a week, that's long enough apparently. And I got tested when my last relationship, um, ended. Haven't slept with anyone since.” Bet's glad she's facing away from him for this. It had taken her six weeks to summon up the courage to go for the tests, terrified that Dan would have left her with parting gifts more than the emotional trauma. All those times he cheated, he could have picked anything up and brought it back to her. But she'd come back clean, and her elation had lasted nearly three full days.

Her attention comes abruptly back to the present as Alex palms her breast again.

“That is sensational news,” he tells her, “because I am also tested and clean.”

“Meant to be, then.”

“Looks like it. Now, where was I?”

God, she's glad she went for comfort today. No button or zip for him to fuss with, he just slips his other hand straight under her waistband and delves downwards. Bet gasps, her legs widening, her head canting back as he presses two fingers into her slit.

“Fuck,” he says, his voice a little unsteady, so close to her ear she can feel its warmth, “been a while for you too, huh?”

“You have,” she manages to get out, grasping at his wrist, “no fucking idea.”

He laughs at that, fond, and then goes to work. Middle fingers against her clit, swiping, circling, rubbing, until he finds a rhythm and a pressure that makes her tip her head back with a groan, one that rises right out of her gut. His other hand is still working at her breast, tweaking at her nipple, playing her body with more efficiency than she ever would have guessed he'd be capable of. She'd have assumed he'd be all dick and no care, chasing his own pleasure first and foremost. But this, god, this. Every pass of his fingers on her clit makes her breath catch, her wetness pooling between her legs.

It's delicious, filthy, being fingered like this in the old barn, her ass pressed back against his erection and her hands anchored on the box in front of her, pushing against his hands, chasing her pleasure higher. Her pussy flutters once, and then again, and she gasps out, “Fuck, yes, _fuck_.”

He picks up the pace, his breathing strained, and the familiar heat begins to build at the base of Bet's pelvis, muscles drawing tight, the white-hot climb towards the peak.

Just as she's about to tumble over, she gasps out, “Wait, wait,” and grabs frantically at his wrist. He stops immediately, true to his word, and has to bite her cheek to stop from swearing at the sudden loss of stimulation.

“Is something wrong?” he pants, voice rough, and Bet shakes her head, scrambling for her leggings.

“I just,” she says, and then pauses with sudden embarrassment. Alex steps back slightly and his fingers come to the round white curve of her ass, touch featherlight.

“Go on, tell me.”

She swallows. But then his fingers find her slit and press in, upwards, and the feeling of them inside her drives out the shame.

“Fuck,” she chokes out, “fuck, I want you to fuck me.”

“Oh, fuck.” There's the jangle as he pulls hurriedly at his belt, the sound of his jeans dropping to his ankles. “That's super hot.”

At this stage, Bet doesn't really care what he thinks about it. She just wants to feel him inside of her. To be filled up. Sex is one thing that's always just felt right, something she can take pleasure from without thinking twice, something that she's good at. It survived Dan, her love of it, and she thinks maybe the lack of it has made these past months even harder than they might have been. Without another word, she gathers her hair out of the way and bends forwards over the box, exposing her bare ass to the air. Alex groans behind her and she hears the wet, rhythmic sounds of him beating himself off. One of his hands presses against her back, holding her gently in place. The cool air licks a path between her slick thighs, and then she heaves out a gasp as she feels the head of his cock against her.

“Jesus.” He's hoarse. “You're so fucking wet.”

“Been a while,” she reminds him breathlessly, half-laughing. The promise of her orgasm is so close, tingling just out of reach, ready to race in the second he stuffs her full. “Come on, Mullner. Get on with it.”

“God,” he says, “if I'd know you were gonna be so demanding–” But she feels the blunt head of his cock at her entrance all the same, the pressure insistent and delicious. They both moan when it slips inside. He goes slow for all his eagerness, and despite her increasing desperation Bet's glad of it as she adjusts around him. He's thick, solid, splitting her open in the best way.

“Fuck.” Alex slides in to the hilt and leans over her, both hands planted on either side of her waist, his forehead grazing the top of her back. “You feel fucking incredible.”

Bet tilts her head sideways, her cheek flat against the wood. He lifts slightly and grins down at her, one eyebrow arching as he pulls back and pushes back in just a little, making her sigh.

“Feeling alright down there?”

She smiles. “Yeah, alright. You?”

“Not too bad, to tell the truth. Not too bad at all.”

She laughs, suddenly delighted with it all, with this idea of his. It really has been too long. He pulls his hips back and surges forward, and her laugh turns into a wordless hiss of pleasure. Oh, yes.

“Fuck,” he groans as he sets to fucking her in earnest, breath coming short and sharp. “You're so fucking tight.”

“Uh huh,” is the only response she can manage, the feeling of him inside her driving out all rational thought. At this angle, he presses against her G spot with every thrust and it's sending her halfway out of her mind. He pistons in and out, slick with her juices. She can hear him panting over her, every breath laboured and loaded with pleasure. It's always turned her on, hearing a guy enjoy it, and it's no different now. She's climbing swiftly back towards her peak, inner walls fluttering and clenching around him, trying to pull him in deeper.

“Fuck, fuck, I'm gonna cum, fuck,” he says, and Bet says rabidly, “wait, wait,” and pushes her hand down to rub her fingers frantically over her clit.

“I can't,” he gasps, “oh, fuck,” and everything in her body flashes white as he buries himself to the hilt and pulses inside her, still trying desperately to fuck her even as his orgasm consumes him. It's enough. Two more hard strokes over her clit and Bet's cumming too, breath heaving out of her, pussy clamping down around him as she orgasms hard enough to see stars. He swears again at the feeling, still twitching inside her, bent down over her, pressing sweat into the nape of her neck.

“Yoba,” she says as she comes down, still breathing hard. “You should have suggested doing this sooner.”

“Yeah?” The grin is his voice is loud enough to hear. His weight against her is warm, pleasant, the hem of his t-shirt feathering her lower back. For just a moment, they both stay there to enjoy it, the quiet closeness. And then he pulls up and back, slipping out of her. Bet pushes herself shakily off the box. She can still feel soft aftershocks, gentle and warm, her limbs pleasantly boneless.

“You're a good fuck, Dean.” He's pulling up his jeans, buckling his belt, but he pauses to give her a cocky grin. “This is the part where you tell me I am, too.”

Bet's giddy enough to giggle at that, but she holds it in and makes a face at him instead. “I don't know, man. What was that, like, three minutes?”

“Uh, four, I think,” he says, but he's laughing, and he moves closer to haul her leggings back up. He lifts her almost off the ground doing it, biceps bulging, and Bet can't hold in laughter as he sets her back down.

“Something to aim for next time,” she suggests. He grins and drops a kiss onto her forehead, affectionate and friendly.

“Next time. Square deal.”

“Right.” She rolls her shoulders back, eases lingering tightness. “You were on bramble duty, yeah?”

“Yup.” He pops the p, doleful. “Hate those things.”

She sets aside the cable she'd been looking for and reaches for the shears. “I'll come help.”

They struggle for another hour, and then he says goodbye, piling odds and ends back into the bed of the truck and clambering back into the cab. Bet presses a bar of chocolate on him shyly through the window, somehow ashamed of this small act of gratitude when she fucked him in the barn without a flicker of embarrassment. He smiles and takes it from her, knuckling her shoulder, hair still tousled.

“Later, Dean,” he tells her, and fires up the ponderous old engine. “Don't work too hard. If I come back and find you dead in a bramble patch I'll be furious.”

“Alright.” She laughs, and she's still laughing as he pulls off down the drive. The chug of the engine fades into the still winter evening, and she stays outside a moment or two longer to enjoy the silence. The evening is cool, calm. Sort of satisfied, like the day has done a good job and it wants to revel in it a little. Bet picks a leaf out of her hair absent-mindedly. She still feels pleasantly unspooled, calmer than she has in months. She might take a bath tonight, if she can face scrubbing the tub clean. Find out if the hot water's up to it. 

Smoke rises in the distance, the only sign of her nearest neighbour. She watches it curl against the clouds for a little while longer, and then at last she turns to go back inside. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


	8. Connections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bet gets her home in order and goes to visit a neighbour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was going to be the doctor's appointment, but then I sent Bet off to meet Marnie, and it sort of spiralled – sorry! Hope you like it regardless.

The evening goes soft and pale, dusk darkening the tops of the trees by imperceptible degrees. In the cabin, Bet balances on the sturdier of the plastic chairs and screws the new lightshade on. Every second she spends doing it feels a step closer to independence. Dan never let her do anything even remotely related to maintenance, insisted on hiring someone in to do everything from resetting the washer to cleaning the bath. His belief in her uselessness seeped into her so utterly that even just changing the bulb now she holds her breath, sure she's milliseconds from electrocuting herself or bringing the whole cabin down around her.

But it goes right. She fixes the shade on, screws the bulb back in, hops down from the chair and crosses to the light switch. The cabin turns soft and amber, no mistake at all.

It changes the character of the cabin utterly, makes the walls look so much less bare. She's so entranced she stops and just watches it all for a little while; the shadowy corners beside the ancient TV, the outlines of the trees through the windows washed in gold.

The achievement gives her a surge of motivation. Maybe she is capable of this. In the next half-hour, she chucks both plastic chairs outside by the gate and manages to get the table through the door to join them. The space seems much bigger without it hulking in the middle, the wooden floorboards worn and warm beneath her feet. She rearranges the room completely, shoves the TV up against the far wall, props the armchair at an angle so she can see out the front window when she sits in it.

But once she's done all that there are lines of dust between the boards, dirt in the high corners of the room. Now she sees it she can't unsee it. Going to bed with it like that seems impossible.

So she cleans. She filled a bag up at Pierre's with polishes and sprays and cloths and she burns through half of them, the old radio cranked up, songs from five decades ago following her as she drifts from the main room to the bathroom and the bedroom, cleaning everything to a shine. It's not even close to as hard as she thought it would be after all this time. Physical, yes, but straightforward, and she discovers a kind of uncomplicated joy in watching dirt lift away beneath her determined hands.

She feels brand new. Shining. Her hair is tousled, sweaty, her fingers red from washing them. She tosses the cloths out as soon as she's done, wastage be damned, the black of them too thick to even consider washing.

And the cabin suddenly, impossibly, feels like a home.

When she's done with the cleaning, she unearths the linens she bought earlier and makes the bed. The yellow and brown of the sunflowers are perfect, cheerful and welcoming. Immediately she can envision what this room would look like if she got more furniture into it – a bedside table to set her coffee cups on, a chest of drawers to accompany the bare wood wardrobe. She imagines twisting the bed around, untucking it from its corner, setting it beneath the tall, wide window and letting the morning sun wake her up by kissing down her face.

She can see it all. The way the colours will interplay. She'll distress the wardrobe, give it more of a rustic look. Find a rug somewhere, so her feet have something soft to sink into in the mornings. Get a lamp like the one she used to have as a teenager, this antique thing her mother hated with a chintzy flowered shade and a bronze base that made it look somehow simultaneously cheap and pricey. She used to love decorating, picked out endless treasures at the local flea market and thrift stores after they moved up north. Watched endless tutorials online to help her turn junk into beauty, all of it coming together in a wash of eclectic harmony.

The potential of her home expands inside her. She's been using the windowsill to balance her books and water glass on, but tomorrow she'll go through the barn properly. Actually get out the stuff she's spotted, see how much she can rescue and reuse. See if there's a table worth salvaging, something to eat on and something to go next to the bed.

Her phone is still on the side where she left it when she got home. She wanders out to find it, flips it over, double-takes when she realises it's nearly two AM. It feels like no time has passed at all. She's sleepy, but not exhausted, still humming with the satisfaction of finally getting the cabin in something resembling order.

She strips her grubby clothes off and showers, washes her hair and then lays a towel flat on the pillow ready to sleep on. With the last of her energy, she unpacks her suitcase. Something about it feels so final. Her dresses hanging in her grandfather's old wardrobe, her jeans folded neatly along the top shelf, thick sweaters piled in the corners. She had to leave so much behind when she fled the city that her clothes fit with plenty of space left over. As a girl, she had so many outfits that they spilled out of her closet and onto racks in her bedroom, a whole wall taken up by skirts and blouses and pants in every colour imaginable.

Maybe she'll see if Alex knows anyone who can build her a proper closet. One she can start to fill again, piece by colourful piece.

In a pair of old shorts and a t-shirt washed so many times it's thin and and satin-soft against her skin, she switches off the light and slides between her new sheets. She bundles her hair up under her head to encourage the waves and then she just lies there.

It's starting to feel real, at last. A new home. Roots. Like maybe, just maybe, she could belong here. If not now, then one day, down the line.

When she sleeps, she dreams of greenhouses filled with flowers and her hands in summer-warmed soil, coaxing vegetables from the earth. For the first time in two years, she doesn't wake up afraid even once.

* * *

The morning comes wet and grey, but the golden calm that suffused her last night has stuck around. She makes fresh eggs again for breakfast, her last two, and finds a scrap of paper tucked beneath them in the carton.

_I live just down the way. Come say hi any time, I've got plenty more eggs if you'd like them. - Marnie_

The overside has a map, drawn in crude lines, directing her south across her land and through the forest. As she eats her eggs in the armchair, Bet squints at it and tries to figure out where it is. She thinks maybe Marnie is the neighbour whose chimney she saw the second day she was here, the day she wandered down to the river. She allows herself the indulgence of remembering that first sight of Harvey, camouflaged against the hedgerow. Dwells for a moment on the line of his jaw, the way the sun caught at the red in his hair. And then she puts him, with infinite care, out of her mind. 

She sets off when she's finished eating. She's not really in the mood to do more farmwork – already can't imagine it without Alex's quiet, steady presence near her, the distant sounds of him clearing undergrowth or restacking the stones of the wall.

The air presses in through her coat, damp and cold. She draws it tighter around herself and picks her way over the rotting fence at the bottom of the farm and into the woods. The scent of loam is thick enough to bottle. The night's rain still drips from the leaves, a gentle melody backed by the wind over the canopy.

Marnie's map points her left when the track forks. The other day, she went straight. This way turns out to be easier. There's even gravel in places, like this was a much more heavily used path in years gone by. Bet remembers the story from the diner, about her grandfather packing Marnie into his truck to buy pigs.

It's only a ten-minute walk, as it turns out. Bet comes out of the trees onto a wider track, and when she turns left she can see where the dirt turns into tarmac and a gate sits, propped open invitingly. She figures that must be it, so she tucks her hands into her pockets and heads over.

Marnie's place is much bigger than hers, one of those huge old houses that looks like it's grown right out of the earth. Bet likes the way it's tucked into the dip in a couple of hills, the silos hovering over it protectively. Cows loo at her from the field on her right as she passes through the gate and tramps up the stone path, their wide eyes bright and curious, mouths moving dopily as they chew the cud.

It's three wide stairs up onto the porch, and then Bet is in front of the door, no more time to think twice about it. She's brought the empty carton back with her as an excuse to come say hi, but it occurs to her now that maybe she ought to have brought something more. That seems like the sort of thing country folk probably do. But she has nothing, no little gifts, nothing homemade to hand over.

She starts to panic, a little, and then whirls around with a gasp as a bang echoes across the yard.

There's a man standing in the middle of it, glaring at her. “You lost?”

“Oh.” Bet goes back down the stairs nervously, hovers at the bottom of them. “Sorry. I was looking for Marnie?”

“Why?”

He's wearing a hoodie in a familiar blue, the empty-eyed Joja smile emblazoned above his heart. Stubble that must be five or six days old has worked its way across his jaw and cheeks, and not in a fashionable way. He makes Bet tense instantly. His energy is as familiar as the blue of his sweater, that same loathing weariness of Dan the morning after a big night out, eyes bloodshot and temper looking for an excuse to get savage.

She swallows hard. He's not Dan. Doesn't even look like him.

“She gave me some eggs. I wanted to thank her.”

“Right. Why?”

Bet hesitates. Then, uncertainly, “Because... it's polite?”

“Jesus. Whatever. Where did you even come from?”

“Oh, um, the city? I moved into Dell Farm last week.”

“Fuck.” He blows out a laugh, though he doesn't sound amused. “That shithole.”

Bet bridles. “That's my farm.”

“Whatever. I have to go to work.” And with that, he turns around and slopes off. Just before he gets to the gate, though, he pauses and turns back. Almost reluctantly, he calls back to her, “Marnie's in the barn. There.” He points at the red structure to the left of the house and then, without waiting to hear her thanks, carries on to wherever he was going.

“Wow,” says Bet to herself, “wow, okay. Okay.”

It takes a minute and a few deep breaths, but eventually she manages to calm some of her nervous energy. The barn's a little ways from the house, but the well-trodden track takes Bet right to a door on the side, and she knocks before she sticks her head inside.

“Hello?”

“Oh!” A woman whirls around in a stall, a heavy pail clanking against her shins, her hands curled loosely around the handle. She's stout, probably only up to Bet's shoulder, her brown hair thick and curly and shot through with grey. “My goodness, sorry, you gave me a fright.”

“I'm so sorry.” Bet hugs the carton to her chest. “I met – uh, there was a man, in the yard. He told me you were out here.”

“That'll be Shane. My nephew.” Marnie looks like she's going to add something else, expression apologetic, but then says instead, “You must be Elizabeth. Goodness, don't you look like your father.”

“Someone said that before. It's funny, I never really knew.”

“It's the hair, I think.” Marnie puts her pail down, her expression pulling briefly taut, and comes closer, smiling, her eyes crinkled up. “His was fair that way when he was young. Yours never darkened?"

“No. I always wanted to dye it black when I was younger, but my mom wouldn't let me. I'm pretty grateful for that now.”

“I'll bet.” Marnie pats her own hair ruefully, smoothing a few wisps back into place. “You liked the eggs?”

Bet looks down at the carton. “Oh, yes, that's what I came to say – thank you. So much. I've been eating them every morning, they're so good. Best I ever tasted.”

“Well now,” says Marnie, pleased, “thank you. They're good hens. You'd like some more?”

“I'd love some. How much?”

“Naw. Neighbours don't pay.”

Bet swallows and stands her ground. “I'd like to, please.” She can't really explain it, the need to stand on her own two feet, but she feels very much like she's taken enough charity from these kind people she's never met. If she's going to be independent in the future, she needs to get started now.

“Well.” Marnie rocks back on her heels, considering. “Tell you what. Why don't we trade? You come on down here and help yourself to eggs any time you like. There's an honesty box out front. And then, payment-wise, you can let me graze a few of my ewes on your land.”

Bet read in one of her farming books about the efficacy of farm animals for keeping down undergrowth, and she raises her eyebrows suspiciously.

“That sort of sounds like it's you doing me two favours.”

“Mutual favours,” says Marnie firmly, “I don't like charity either. I sold off one of my last fields in the fall and my girls are feeling hemmed in. The extra space and change of scenery will cheer them up no end.”

“Oh,” says Bet, and examines that for a lie. She doesn't know enough about farming or land ownership round here to be able to tell if Marnie is having her on. Anyway, if she is being tricked, it's the kindest trick that's ever been played on her. So she replies, “Well then, yes please. That would be fantastic. I'll keep an eye on them for you, look after them. Just... you maybe will need to tell me how to do that.”

“Of course. Come on. Let's have a cup of coffee, and then I'll take you to meet them.”

* * *

Bet ends up spending near enough five hours with Marnie. It starts with coffee, both of them a little shy, then she shows Bet her sheep. The ewes are so lovely, fat and content and skittish, that it's not hard for Bet to be enthusiastic. And that wins Marnie over, apparently, because soon she's introduced Bet by name to all six of her cows, talked her through the best ways to look after them, and given her a full tour of the farm.

At two-thirty, they're resting their elbows on a hardwood fence at the bottom of the field, and Bet's wondering if Marnie would think she was strange if she knelt down to get a better look at how the planks are fitted together so she can have an opinion when she and Alex talk about the best thing for the fences on the farm.

“This place used to run all the way to the treeline over yonder.” Marnie is gazing out at the rolling expanse of meadow and the distant forest. Her stare goes back decades. “It was my grandfather's place. His father's before him. But there's been no money, not for so long. I've had to sell almost everything.”

Bet's mouth thins in sympathy. “I'm sorry.”

“It's the way things go, sometimes. If we got more folk through, it would be alright. I used to sell feed to farmers for miles around, and the tourists coming by would always stop for fresh eggs and milk and to meet the animals. I take in all sorts of waifs and strays – you won't see any of them, but I've got about fifty cats roaming the place. Wary little things. And I've had donkeys, goats, horses over the years. People tend to bring the abandoned creatures they find this way. Or they used to, anyway. But Joja's bought up most of the valley, and all the land around it. They don't need feed for those robots that sow and harvest for them.”

“Joja,” says Bet, the name a little like a curse in her mouth. “Alex said they bought his friend's farm a little while ago. Going to turn it into one of those mega-farms.”

“Growing just one crop, I'll bet.” Marnie sighs, pats the fence with a swollen-jointed hand. “Monoculture, honestly. It's like a desert. Nothing living save those endless rows of corn or whatever it is. The land's suffocating under it. I was worried, you know.” She admits this quietly, not looking at Bet. “When I heard William left Dell Farm to his granddaughter. I thought you'd sell it to Joja first chance you got and they'd have me on all sides. They were agitating him for years to sell.”

Bet goes a little pink, but smiles. “Glad to disappoint them. But, I mean, surely the forest is protected land?”

“Nope.” Marnie pronounces the word with such grim finality that the 'p' pops loud. “At least, it is, but only as long as you hold onto it. You will, won't you? If you can?”

“Wait.” Bet turns, leans sideways on the fence to look at Marnie properly. “ _I_ own the forest?”

“Well, of course.” Marnie twists and points up at the trunks behind her house, right on the crest of the hill. “Your land meets mine where the trees stop. It's all yours.”

“That's crazy. I can't own all that.”

“Well, I'm glad you do. Means it'll stay standing a while yet. Joja want it all, you know. They'll clear the trees and plant more palms or corn. Some of those trees are hundreds of years old.”

Bet is swimming slightly with the revelation. The idea that the trees belong to her is impossible. They can't belong to a human being. They're their own kingdom, a wild universe that sits well outside any person's ability to cultivate or control.

“I'll never cut them down,” she finds herself promising, “I swear. I'll do anything to stop from having to do it.”

“I wouldn't blame you if you had to let them go, though.” Marnie pats her hand gently. “The kind of money Joja offers... sometimes you can't say anything but yes.”

“Not me. I don't need their money. I'll live off air before I take it.”

Already Bet's mind is racing. What she can do to ensure that she never, ever has to give up the farm to Joja's hungry maw. She'll need to go off-grid, make sure there's never an unpaid electricity or water bill. She'll have her phone, and that will be it. It must be achievable. She'll ask Alex when he's back next week, see what her savings will stretch to.

“Well, good for you.” Marnie is smiling at her, smiling broad and true. Her teeth are crooked and a little yellow, but Bet grins back anyway, just as wide. “Good for all of us, really. Lewis – I mean, Mayor Lewis, he'll be glad when he hears. He wants Joja as far from us all as he can get them. He'd kick them out of town if he could, wants to just as much as Pierre.”

Pierre. The thought of him trickles into Bet's mind, and she can't figure out why it sticks, until thoughts of Pierre go to thoughts of the general store, and then her trip there yesterday, and then she gasps in horror.

“Oh, goodness.” She pulls her phone out, checks the time. 2.42. “Shoot. I'm so sorry, I have an appointment. At three. I should really go – how long will it take me to walk into town from here?”

“Ah, it's about twenty minutes if you walk fast.” Marnie peers at Bet's phone to see the time. “Better get your skates on, lovey. I'm sorry, I'd offer to drive you, but I can't these days.” She lifts her hands and Bet sees again the swollen knuckles, gnarled fingers. “Arthritis.”

“Oh, no that's completely fine, it's totally my fault. I'm so sorry to just dash off after such a lovely day.”

“Not at all. You get going. I'll put some fresh eggs out for you, you can pick them up on your way back past.”

“That's so kind. And I'll come down next Tuesday to help bring the sheep up, once we've sorted out the fence.”

“It's a plan. Go on, get on with you.”

On a whim, Bet reaches out and hugs her. She isn't really sure why, even once she's doing it. Marnie startles, but then relaxes, and gives her a quick squeeze in return. They're both a little red when they part, embarrassed but pleased, and Bet gives her a shy wave as she turns to make her way back towards the road.

“See you soon!” Marnie calls after her, and Bet repeats it back to her right before she turns out of sight. It's a strange and lovely feeling. That's two people expecting to see her next week. Alex and Marnie. People who will notice if she doesn't show, who will probably look for her if they can't find her. It's probably a little sad, how full of joy that makes her.

For now, though, she has her appointment to look forward to. Her heart is already beating a little faster in her chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Your kudos and comments so far have brought me so much joy and really given me the motivation to keep working on this story <3


	9. Regressing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At her doctor's appointment, an encounter sends Bet spinning back into the past.

Bet launches herself through the door to the doctor's clinic, flushed and breathless. The girl from the previous week is behind the desk again, her uniform so white and neat Bet feels grubby just being in the same room.

“Hi,” she says, “Elizabeth, right?”

“Yeah. I'm so sorry, I totally lost track of the time. Have I missed my appointment?”

“Nah, you're only a couple of minutes late, don't worry. We're pretty flexible here most of the time.” The girl stands, smiling. “Doctor Harvey just popped upstairs to get some coffee, so d'you want to grab a seat? He won't be a minute.”

“Oh, sure, sure.” Bet forces herself to be calm. Keeps her arms determinedly loose by her sides.

“I'm Maru.” The girl smiles, wide and easy. “I keep forgetting I haven't introduced myself. Everyone knows your name already, obviously. How's the farm treating you? I hear Alex Mullner is up there helping you out?”

“Oh, yeah.” Bet feels her way into a seat. “News travels fast.”

“Sure does. Small town, you know. You moved from the city, is that right?”

“Uh, yep. That's right.”

“Like, the centre, or more suburb-way?”

“Bit of both. I had a little place by myself the last few months, close to the train station. Before that I lived with – I lived in the business district.”

“Yoba, it must seem boring here by comparison.”

Bet settles a little deeper into her chair. She's about to say something about liking boring, about needing it, when the door pushes open again and a young woman presses her way inside. She's red-haired, freckled, her eyes unhappy in a way that feels familiar. The kind of unhappy you live with, not the type comes upon you only rarely.

She's also – Bet's breathing falters – visibly pregnant, six months gone at least if Bet's any kind of judge, and she's holding her hands over her belly in a way that says _I love this child more than I love my own life already_. That hollow ache takes Bet in the gut, a seasick lurch, and she wraps both hands hard around the handles of her chair. She's seen pregnant women since it happened, obviously, but not here. Not this close. She'd been getting kind of good at divorcing the past from the present. Shutting all of that outside the Valley. This women, with her sheltering hands, brings it viciously back.

“Hey,” says the woman softly, shoots a nervous smile in Bet's direction, and heads up to Maru at the desk. “I'm sorry to barge in. I tried to call Doctor Harvey but he didn't answer. I just, I've got that funny pain again, I just wanted to check. To ask, I guess. Is he free?”

Maru's face puckers up, sympathetic. “Oh, Penny, I'm sorry, he's actually due in with Elizabeth. I don't know how long, maybe—“

“You can,” Bet manages to get out, her throat closing up, voice hoarse, “you can have my appointment, I don't mind.”

“Oh, I couldn't.” Penny turns to her, one hand on her purse, eyes wide. “Honestly, I can wait, it'll be—”

They all turn as the back door pushes open and the doctor appears, glasses in one hand and coffee in the other, rubbing his wrist across his eyes. He spots Bet first and he's halfway to a smile when he notices the paleness of her, the white of her knuckles around the chair. He sees Penny next, and his gaze comes to rest on Maru last. He quirks his eyebrows at her, the question unspoken, but Maru has obviously been working here long enough not to need it said aloud.

“Penny was saying that thing from last week is back. She was hoping to ask you about it, and Elizabeth said she wouldn't mind trading slots.”

Harvey turns to Bet, putting his glasses back on. “That's very kind of you.”

Bet's already halfway out of her chair. The panic is clawing up her throat.

“Yeah, no, fine, I'll just,” she says, knowing they're all staring, hating it, her face so hot she can feel it, “I'll wait outside, or come back tomorrow maybe, I'll just...”

Her guts are roiling, palms clammy. She needs to get out of here.

“Maru,” says Harvey, without taking his eyes off Bet. “Can you take Penny through to the ward, get her comfortable? I'll be along in a second."

Bet wants to die for the shame of being judged more of a medical concern than a pregnant lady with abdominal pain. If there were ever a sign she needs to get her shit together, that is it. She needs to say something, to convince them all not to worry. To stop being such an attention-seeker. But she can't summon up the arguments. She feels a phantom twist in her stomach, a not-there baby pummelling the inside of her skin, and she closes her eyes. Maybe she's about to pass out. That might be less embarrassing than having a complete meltdown in the doctor's waiting room.

Maru is careful not to look at her as she guides Penny through the double doors and out of sight. Bet is grateful for that small mercy at least.

“Alright.” Harvey moves slowly, deliberately. Makes sure she can see the hand that's coming towards her, pressing just lightly under her elbow so he can guide her into a seat below the window. She can't look at his face. He cracks it open where the breeze comes through and then sits down opposite her, folding his tall frame into the low chair. He leans forwards, elbows on knees.

“Okay,” he says, “right then. You're going to breathe with me, alright? In, out. Four counts. Ready?”

Bitter shame washes through her, acrid. She wraps both arms around her stomach like she can force the pain away and fixes her gaze on his sharp brown shoes.

“I'm sorry,” she chokes out, “just, pathetic, I didn't mean—”

“Hey.” He leans in a little closer. His hand appears again to tap, so gently, at the side of her knee. “You can do all the self-recrimination stuff later. First, we breathe.” And he sucks a breath in, loud and slow. As Bet's heart continues to thud hard under her ribs, she matches him. Forces herself to follow his breaths, in and out, in and out. Counts of four.

At last, her chest opens up enough for the tears to rise. She battles them down with everything she has, swallowing convulsively. She will not cry here, in the doctor's surgery, in front of this man she barely knows. Not over a pregnant woman she's never met before.

“Okay.” Harvey sits back. She hears him take a swig of his coffee. “You want to talk about it?”

She keeps her gaze firmly on his shoes. “Um, I don't...”

“That's okay.” The leather of the chair creaks as he shifts. “Just – I mean, Penny didn't kill one of your family members, or something?”

Despite everything, Bet feels a laugh bubble up. She knows it'll be the hysterical sort before it even gets there so she holds it down.

“Um, no. It wasn't – nothing like that. Nothing about her. Really,” and she looks up at him at last, holding her chin steady, determined to be brave, “I'm fine.”

The way he's looking at her is utterly disarming. So concerned she could swim in it. She's embarrassed by how much it matters to her, to be looked at like that. Like she's worth being worried about.

“I'm not going to ask you to talk about it here.” He takes another swallow of coffee, brows drawing down. “But I think you should talk about it, if it's to do with – what you mentioned, the other week. In your appointment. If not with me, then with someone. There's a therapist over in Appleton I could give you a number for?”

“Thanks, but – I can't really afford a therapist. I'm not even really sure I can afford this follow-up.”

“Follow-ups are free,” he says, quickly enough for Bet to suspect that's a lie. “I can have a word with her? See if we can work something out?”

Bet's whole face burns at the idea of that. The picture that therapist will build instantly, a no-good mess who depends on men to tell others she's flat broke and to negotiate prices down on her behalf.

“Thank you,” she says, more firmly, “but I'll be fine. If I feel like I need that, I'll make it work.”

His face softens. “Okay.”

“You should,” Bet squirrels a little deeper into her chair, “she was worried, that lady. Penny. I'm fine. I'll just, I think I'll come back another time, if that's alright? I probably should get back, you know.”

“I'd like to follow up.” Harvey's face draws tight. There's an unexpectedly mulish cast to his jaw, suddenly, and Bet understands how he must have looked as a twenty-something emergency room doctor, glowering at the miscreants in the twenty-four-hour fluorescent lighting.

“I'll phone next week,” she suggests, “rearrange with – Maru? Your... um, assistant?”

“Receptionist,” he clarifies, “and occasional not-quite-qualified nurse. I'd really rather you stayed. I can see you now. Penny'll be fine, she hasn't had a problem yet. She's just nervous.”

“No, uh, look, I'll just wait. Okay? Right here. You should go see her.”

Maybe she looks too ready to bolt. He doesn't believe her for a second, she can see that, but they don't know each other well enough for him to call her out on it. Which is what she was banking on. The never-ending politeness of folks out here in the Valley.

So he gets up, repeats once more that he wants to talk to her this afternoon, and then he disappears at a brisk clip through the doors. Bet counts to ten and then flees.

She makes it all the way out of town before she lets herself cry, humiliation and self-pity thick enough that the sobs come fast and choking. A meltdown in the doctor's office, just fucking brilliant. When she'd been doing so well, too, had such a good day. A good week.

By the time she gets to the narrow track that leads up to the farm, she's swollen-eyed and muddy. Her jeans are splattered, sneakers damp enough to chafe, and that merciless misery has opened up beneath her feet. She lost whole days like this after she first left Dan, curled up under her duvet, surfacing only to cry or pee before she went right back to sleep, her sadness the most exhausting thing she'd ever faced.

The trudge up the path feels endless. Rain starts to come in, the light kind that clings to everything, and Bet's hunched and shivering as she pushes through the new gate and onto her land. Her phone goes off in her pocket as she's fumbling with the catch and she wrestles it out as she tries to ram the gate closed through sheer force.

It's a vaguely familiar number. Valley area code. Bet answers and presses the phone to her ear, tucking it between her shoulder and jaw as she finally gets the gate bolted.

“Hello?”

“You promised you'd wait.”

It's Doctor Harvey. Of course it is. He sounds mildly irritated, and Bet tucks inwards at that, feeling like a naughty kid in front of a grown-up. Because he is, isn't he, a real and proper adult with all his shit together, and she's the barest outline of a recent-teen, held together by old traumas and an unwillingness to lie down and take the hurt anymore.

“I'm really sorry. I didn't want to bother you.”

There's the sound of shuffling papers, a brief sigh. “You're not. It's my job.”

She doesn't have anything to say to that. She leans forward, presses her forehead against the cold metal of the gate. There's silence on the other end of the line too. At last he makes a noise, blowing out a breath, she thinks, and she recognises the crunch of the spinning chair in his office as it's wrenched upright from a leant-back position. It made that noise several times while she was in the surgery last week.

“Can you come back in tomorrow?”

“Um, I don't... wait, aren't you closed tomorrow?”

A brief span of quiet, and then, “I'll make an exception.”

Bet lifts her forehead off the gate, frowns down at it. “You don't have to do that. I can just come in next week.”

“Will you really come in, though?”

Nettled, Bet straights up. “Yeah. If I say I will.”

“You said you'd stay this afternoon.”

She almost spits, forgive me for not wanting to have a breakdown in front of people I don't know, but she holds it back. He won't care, will he? All he sees is someone young, selfish, ungrateful. What a child she must be to him. He was already in scrubs when she was still knock-kneed and feral, nose sunburnt and heart carefree. She keeps forgetting – keeps letting herself forget – that he's that much older than her. That shit like age matters in the real world, even if it doesn't in the little fantasy land she builds inside her head.

So she swallows and says, voice pinched, “I'm sorry. If you think I need to come in, then I'll come.”

His tone softens instantly. “I didn't mean it like that. I just – it's my job, to make sure you're okay.”

His job. Bet pushes her tongue against her teeth for a beat. Just his job. Of course.

“It's fine.” She is distant, drifting. A dandelion seed on the wind. “Monday, then? Do you have any afternoon appointments available?”

His mouse clicks down the line. A pause, and then he offers, “Two?”

“Two.” She is a thousand yards outside herself, watching herself get blown away. “Cool. See you then.”

“Bet,” he says, but she's already hung up the phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


	10. Climbing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been such a long time. I'm not abandoning this story at all – just having to roll with the lockdown moods.

It's amazing how long a weekend can feel when there's nobody to share it with. Bet spends Saturday going slowly mad, fighting obsessively with brambles, clucking at the cat in the barn, absolutely not thinking about the doctor's disappointment or about Dan or about anything else that might set her off. It's a hard thing. They keep skirting into the edges of her subconsciousness when she loses focus.

By Sunday afternoon, she's crawling out of her skin. Her hands are reddened and marred with scratches, lines of red marching up her arms and even over her cheek where she's been careless with the undergrowth.

It's the biggest relief she can imagine, then, when her phone pings and she finds a text from Alex, _going to murder my gdad if i stay here, want 2 go for a drive?_

She tries not to sound too desperate. _where?_

_literaly anywhere_

_just need 2 to get out of town for an hour_

She puts her phone down for a minute to stop herself from texting back immediately. But he doesn't wait; another text flies in less than sixty seconds later: _this is a friend thing btw if ur worried about it not a hookup thing_

She wouldn't be against it being a hookup thing is the truth, but that therapist she saw twice did suggest, so gently, that Bet perhaps has a bit of an issue with turning to sex as a way of avoiding dealing with problematic emotions, a hang over of all the times she tugged Dan into bed to divert an incoming storm or to smooth the edges off his temper before it caught alight.

So not a hookup thing is probably for the best, all things considered.

She texts back, _sure meet you at the bottom of the lane in 15?_

 _angle_ , Alex texts back, accompanied by the halo emoji. A burst of fondness she wasn't prepared for floods through her when she sees the typo and the smiley. She has to put her phone down to work her way through it.

Thirteen minutes later, she's waiting at the side of the road, stamping her feet to keep them warm. She'd lost three solid minutes agonising over whether to wear the now mud-caked rainboots or the incriminatingly fashionable chunky sneakers. In the end, she picked the sneakers, and her toes are freezing.

She hugs her arms into herself and tips her head back to watch the tree branches against the grey sky. God, she hopes spring starts to show itself soon. She can feel the weather leaching into her, bringing her down with it.

A chugging in the distance announces Alex's arrival long before his truck finally appears around the bend. Dusty's face is visible over the dashboard, mouth cracked, tongue lolling out. The rush of relief takes Bet aback, her visceral delight in seeing the pair of them a clue as to just how lonely she's been feeling these past couple of days. It's funny, really. She'd been so sure she wanted nothing more than to be alone.

Alex leans over to push the door open for her and she hauls herself into the cab. Dusty's tail thumps uncertainly against the seat, both pleased to see her and not. He's in the middle, strapped into his harness, the bench below him furred ginger. When Bet reaches for him, he leans back uneasily. They both glance over at Alex for a clue as to what to do next, which makes him shout out a laugh.

“Yoba, you've both got the exact same facial expression right now.” He puts a hand on top of Dusty's head and ruffles the dog's ears. “You're fine, Dust. Bet's our friend. Just put your hand out to him,” this to Bet, “remind him he met you already. He'll settle.”

So Bet does, extending a hand tentatively to Dusty, who sniffs it just as shyly. When he licks it, Bet's heart soars.

“Maybe he doesn't hate me that much,” she declares hopefully to Alex, who grins in response.

“Don't tell him I told you, but secretly I think he quite likes you, actually. Now do your seatbelt up. Let's get out of here.”

They drive and drive. After forty minutes, the forest gives way to ragged grassland and then towering hedgerows and endless churned-up fields waiting to be seeded. It's like a wound on the landscape, all the barren brown, the mountains on the horizon watching over it all in mute despair.

“That's Oxley,” says Alex, breaking off from their desultory conversation about the latest scandal involving a famous gridball player and a Class A drug habit. Bet follows his pointing finger. The town is small, huddled around the grey tarmac of the road in the middle of all this endless flatness. One side of it is more empty fields, the other an imposing morass of Joja warehouses.

“Used to be real pretty.” Alex presses his thumb over his lower lip. “Prettier than Pelican Town. My best mate's girlfriend lived there, back in high school. They had the cutest little cafe. It's where everyone went for first dates.”

Bet can almost picture it. Alex's Valley twang paints the picture of it better than his words do, really, fifteen-year-old jocks and shy pretty girls clustered close around tables, sharing milkshakes or whatever. Like something out of a bygone era.

“Is it still there?”

“Nah.” Alex drives right past the turning that would take them there. “All they've got now is a Jojamart.”

“Well, shit,” says Bet, because what else is there to say?

“I try not to be, like, depressing and whatever. But I don't know what I'll do if Joja get more of the Valley. Like, all of this.” He spreads out a hand at the fields around them, so devoid of life. “It would damn near break my heart to see it end up like this.”

Bet's nose scrunches up. She's been a Valley resident less than a month and already she knows it would do the same to her.

“I meant to ask you, actually,” she says now, remembering the conversation with Marnie, “I've got to figure out a way to cut my costs. Marnie told me, she said all the forest around the farm is mine. And Joja want it. There's no way I'm going to sell it to them, but I don't honestly know how long I'll be able to afford not to. Like, farming's not famous for making you rich. And I've got to pay for a bunch of stuff before I even get anything out of the ground. Basic stuff like water and electricity.”

“Bills are a bitch.” Alex's brows have drawn down, thoughtful. “How much have you got?”

“Not a lot. I, um––“ Bet stops herself. She likes how easy it is with Alex. She doesn't want it complicated with pity or contempt for the things she let happen. She doesn't want him to know all the ways she's failed in her life so far. So she tells him, “I had some shit happen, before. It didn't leave me with much. I reckon I can cover the bills for a couple of months. I don't know how much longer after that. Water alone, it's going to be way more expensive that it was in the city, coming all the way from the mains. I'm dreading the first bill.”

Alex is quiet for a little while. Bet uses the time to press a hand over Dusty's ears, enjoying the way he sighs. When he gets up and rearranges himself on the seat to plop his head into her lap, it warms her all the way through.

“We should talk to Robin,” Alex decides at last, glancing over at her. “If there's a groundwater source or something on your property, you might be able to go off the mains. Maybe you are already even. And electricity... I don't know, man. Robin's daughter, though, she's into all sorts of science-y shit. You should ask her about solar or whatever.”

“I'd love to be on solar. Even if not for the money, you know? Just for the environment. But it's so expensive to put in.”

“Yeah. But there might be grants or something. Subsid-whatevers. We all pay enough tax, the mayor's got to have more than he needs. All he spends it on is filling in potholes and paying my gramma to do the flowers in the summer.”

Bet gives him a narrow look. “Why do I get the feeling you're not the biggest fan of our illustrious mayor?”

“Oh, _our_ now is it, city-slicker?”

She sticks her tongue out at him. He goes off into peals of uproarious laughter, so loud Dusty shies away into Bet, and she flattens her hands over the dog's head and laughs too.

“Nah,” he says when he's recovered, indicating left and pulling onto a new road, “he's fine, I guess. It's just, you know, all things considered we're a good community. We don't ask much of a mayor, and maybe that's why Lewis is the way he is. Just cruising, I guess? Never trying anything new. Same festivals every year. But there's much more he could be doing. Pressuring the bus company to do something about our route, for a start. Two years they've been skipping us. The people without cars are just, boom, stranded. He could organise loans to help people set up businesses. The time I've spent in the city, you know, the council might be corrupt and useless but at least they're doing _something_. Hell, we don't even have police.”

“I get along just fine without police,” Bet says firmly. But there's such passion in his voice she's leaning into his point of view. “Well, what can we do about it? Does he hold, like, town hall meetings?” She saw those in a TV show once, loved the idea of a whole community getting together to air their hopes and annoyances.

Alex snorts. “As if. He doesn't do anything that might expose him to criticism.”

“Well, I don't know. Maybe someone should run against him at the next elections. Just to, like, shake him down a little, you know?”

“I'd be into that if I thought we could persuade anybody.”

“I don't know people well enough yet. But you should ask your grandpa. Sounds like the kind of thing he'd be into.”

“Yeah? How d'you figure that?”

“I dunno. He just seems like the kind of man who likes annoying people like Mayor Lewis.”

Alex thinks about that for a minute, then laughs again. “You know, you've got him nailed. How many times have you met him?”

“I haven't yet. But just from hearing you talk about him.”

“Fair, fair.” Alex shifts down a gear to take a narrow corner, then accelerates into a long bit of straight road. “Oh, can you get the jerky out? Just – yeah, pull that button thing there.”

They chew on it as the distant smudges of the mountains speed towards them, gradually resolving into distinct shapes and then into lumbering behemoths that dominate the view through the windshield. Alex takes them onto a narrow, switchback trail that whisks them higher, then higher still. At last he pulls over onto a dusty semicircle of dirt and kills the engine.

The view takes Bet's breath clean away.

The forest is a distant blur of green and brown, the sea invisible beyond it. From up here, the fields in between are prettier, great patchwork squares, the machines trawling them too far away to hear.

“Nobody ever comes up this way,” Alex says, his hands loose on the wheel. “Never seen another car, not once. I don't get why. It's so pretty.” He says the word smooth as butter, _priddy_ , a pleasant warmth to it that unspools something in Bet.

“It really is.” She undoes her seatbelt and pushes open the door. The air in the Valley is thick and fresh and sweet. Up here it's just as fresh, but thin and challenging, like it would try to blow you off if you let it. The dirt beneath her sneakers is baked-brown, stony. She likes the way little rocks dig into the arches of her feet through the worn-down soles.

They stay up there for a while, sprawling on the bonnet, Dusty panting reproachfully in the shadow of the truck.

Alex's phone goes off eventually, killing the all-encompassing quiet. Bet pushes herself onto her elbows as he answers, the soft loops of his accent trawling the words, turning them to honey.

“Sure, sure,” he's saying slowly. “I'm out right now but – yeah. Alright. Seven? Yeah.” He rings off and lies back, throwing an arm over his eyes. He blows out a breath, long and slow, and Bet stays quiet as he works things through.

“So,” he says at last, “what I said the other day, about how one-night stands aren't, like, a thing here?”

“Mm.” Bet is careful to sound non-committal. She lies back down beside him, staring up at the endless sky.

“It wasn't totally true. Like, I probably could find someone to hook up with. But I... I have an ex in town. We were together from when we were basically 12. I mean, not officially, but it was always us two. Everyone knew. Until I did something really dumb two years ago.”

Bet knocks her elbow, gently, against his. “I know a lot about doing dumb things. You can tell me, if you want to.”

“It makes me sound like a real bad person. I mean, I was – it was a bad thing I did. It makes me a bad person.”

“Okay. That won't change whether you're my friend or not.”

The words come out of him slow and hesitant. “I cheated on her.”

“Oh.” Bet lets it sit for a minute. “Well, people do that. I mean, it is shitty. But it happens.”

“I know. I never thought I was one of those people, but – man, I don't even know. I was in the city with some buddies, we were drunk... it was dumb as shit. I don't even remember the girl's name. But I came right back the next day to tell Haley, you know, like to be honest with her? Only one of my asshole friends had got there first. He always wanted to fuck her and he thought, I don't know, that this was the way in. She gave me a black eye and told me never to come near her again. And now everybody in town hates me. Even my gran holds it over me. She'd never say anything, but she does. Always going on about how my friends are a bad influence and whatever. But it wasn't them, you know? I did it. It's my fault.”

When he takes his arm away from his eyes, they're bright and hurting. Bet wants to hug him like she's never wanted anything, but she finds herself shying away from the instinct.

“I'm really sorry. That sucks.”

“I mean, I deserve it. I wasn't a nice person back then. Gramma always says I had a head full of myself and a heart full of nonsense. And I guess she was right. I mean, I did cheat.

“Well, yeah. But it's not fair for everyone to judge you. We've all done stupid shit. And you look like you regret it.”

“I do. A lot.”

“And, look, I know I barely know anybody, but I don't think they all hate you. You know, you coming to help me out on the farm? That was the doctor's idea, and Gus agreed. They must think something good of you, to suggest you come help out a stranger in need.”

He doesn't say anything to that, but Bet can see the idea of it looping around his head.

And then he says, “That was her on the phone. Haley.”

Bet isn't sure exactly what to do with that information. Alex is looking away from her. She can just see the brown curve of his cheekbone, the tight line of his jaw.

“We hang a lot. Even though...”

Bet's brow wrinkles. “I mean, that happens.”

“You don't think it's fucked up?” He turns back to her, green eyes so unsure. “Like, that she tells everyone she hates me, but she still calls me all the time? Sometimes just to yell. Sometimes to talk. We talk for, fuck, for hours. I didn't even know I _could_ talk so much.”

Bet chews on the inside of her lip. And then she says, cautiously, “It maybe is a little bit fucked up. But, like, who doesn't have a fucked-up relationship in their life? It's just... like, so long as it's not making you miserable.”

“I don't know.” He throws his arm across his eyes again, shields himself from her gaze. “I feel like it's making me pretty fucking miserable. Just don't know how to not pick up when she calls. It'd feel worse, I guess. Like, I cheated, and now she's willing to talk to me and be the bigger person?”

Bet hasn't met Haley. Hasn't got the faintest clue what kind of person she is. But she knows Alex. Even in just a week she knows him, the cocky way he reaches to do things because he assumes she can't but the patient way he explains things when she asks about them. Like how he knelt beside her and showed her, with infinite care, how to pull away the weeds without disturbing the first of the crocuses, his big hands so gentle with the blooms.

“You don't owe her,” she says, low and firm. “You've apologised for what you did. You've grown up past it. If she's treating you one way in public and another way in private, that makes her a small person, not you.”

He blows out a breath.

When no reply is forthcoming, Bet props herself up onto her elbows and pokes him in the shoulder.

“Hey. Don't call her tonight.”

“Yeah? What else am I gonna do?”

“Come back with me. We can grab food and a movie from the rental place on the way back and crash.” And when he still doesn't answer, she grins and says, “This is a friend thing, by the way, not a hookup thing.”

That makes him look up at her. He searches her face and finds the smile there, the teasing. And then he ducks his gaze, and of all things red is curling up his cheeks. It makes Bet feel dangerously fond.

“Alright,” he says to his own lap. “Let's do it.”

Back in the car, Dusty's tail thumping with relief against the seat, Alex glances over at Bet.

“You know,” he says, slow and thoughtful, “I never had a friend who's a girl before.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It's weird.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“No, not like that. Just... I dunno. Thanks, I guess.”

“You're welcome.” It's Bet's turn to look down at her lap, embarrassingly pleased by his words. And then she says, “Thanks too. For being my friend out here. I didn't think I'd make any, and definitely not so fast.”

“You're pretty easy to be friends with, Dean.”

“Right back atcha, Mullner.”

Alex laughs, head tipped back, mood already brightening. Bet rolls down the window and turns the dials on the radio. They make their way back down the mountain, pumping twangy country music out into the still afternoon air. Bet feels big and brave inside her skin, arms on the door, hair blowing in the wind the truck kicks up. It's been so long since she felt so at home inside her body. So long since she felt free. She wants to stay in this truck on this road on this day forever.


	11. Discovering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A speedy update and a long chapter and a little touch of smut? Who am I? I hope you enjoy!

It's getting dark by the time Alex parks the truck in front of the cabin and kills the engine. Bet hops out, her arms full of junk food they grabbed from a gas station halfway between Pelican Town and Oxley.

Alex is fussing with something in the cab, making a racket, and so Bet's alone when she hops up the steps to her deck and jumps nearly out of her skin at the sight of someone struggling to their feet from the rocking chair.

“Holy shit,” she gasps, just about hanging onto the groceries.

“I'm so sorry.” It's the girl from the doctor's. The pregnant one. Penny. “I didn't mean to startle you – I just came by and I thought I'd wait a bit to see if you got back.”

The conversation is already going a little echoey. Bet blinks, tries to force herself to focus on Penny's words and face, not on the swell of her stomach, her slender hands folded over it.

“Uh, sorry, I didn't mean – have you been waiting long?”

“Oh, not at all, just ten minutes or so. It was actually really nice to sit down.”

“Right. Okay.” Bet just stands there like a moron. Her heart is beating in her ears.

“Look,” says Penny, when it becomes clear Bet's not going to say anything, “I just wanted to say sorry about Friday, at the surgery. I never meant to take your appointment – if I'd known it meant you couldn't make yours, I never would have... I'm just really sorry.”

“No, no. It's fine.” Bet's voice sounds distant and strange to her. “It's not... it wasn't your fault. I just, um, I had a thing. That came up. You know?”

“Sure.” There's a note of eagerness in Penny's voice that sounds painfully familiar. The desire to be agreeable and pliant, to match herself to what the person she's speaking to wants. It stirs something hunted and afraid inside Bet.

Behind her, the truck door slams and Alex finally saunters up to the cabin.

“Oh, Penny.” He rocks back on his heels. “You're a long way from home.”

“I was just passing.” Penny looks relieved to find someone familiar, her hands wringing together above her bump. “Thought I'd stop in and say I'm sorry I poached Elizabeth's doctor slot.”

Alex clicks his tongue. “Terrible. Thieving, right here in Pelican Town.”

Penny goes bright red, but Alex doesn't even notice. He's too busy fishing the cabin key out of Bet's coat pocket, casual in a way that Penny's eyes go to at once, evaluating. Bet just lets him, her pulse still racing.

“Well, we gonna stand out here until it's full dark, or what?” he wants to know, nudging the door open with his hip and raising an eyebrow at Bet.

“Yeah, yes, sorry.” Bet takes a deep breath and at last looks Penny square in the eye. She can do this. “Would you like to come in?”

“Oh.” Penny hesitates, one hand on the strap of her back. And then she swallows and says, “If you're sure it's not too much trouble.”

“We've got so much popcorn, you'd actually be doing us a favour helping with it,” Alex promises, holding the door open for them both with his heel.

Penny looks back over her shoulder. Bet manages a weak, watery smile and gestures forwards, encouraging her into the house.

  
  


  
  


Leaving Penny in charge of popcorn, Alex and Bet duck out of the cabin to hunt for some extra chairs.

“You know her well?” Bet asks as they shove open the door to the barn, strobing the interior with the light from their phone torches. “Penny, I mean?”

“Sure.” Alex hands her his phone to hold and heaves a crate aside like it's made of paper. “I mean, same way everyone knows everyone well round here. We overlapped at school by a coupla years.” He shifts a tarp, starts pushing at some kind of misshapen lump of metal. “She's always been kinda shy, though. Not like you are. Like she doesn't want anyone getting closer.”

Bet scrunches her nose up and moves closer, holding the phones up so he can see what he's doing.

“And I want people getting closer?”

He puts both big hands on the line of something and sets his feet. “Yeah. You've got major I-need-friends energy.”

“That makes me sound _so_ lame.”

“I didn't mean it in a bad way.” He rocks forward to gain momentum, then puts his whole body into yanking at whatever he's found. “Just, like, you've got the vibe like you'd be friends with the world if you could. Penny's vibe is no thank you to friends, not now and not ever.”

Bet is torn between wanting to dig more into the impression he has of her, and wanting to nose deeper into Penny's history. But whatever Alex has found is starting to shift, creaking noises emanating from the pile of junk in front of them both.

“Give me a hand, come on,” he says, blowing his hair out of his eyes.

Bet balances the phones on a box and moves forward, setting her hands beside his.

“What even is this?”

“Bench, I think. We can put blankets and pillows and shit on it, make it comfy.”

“A bench? Jesus.”

“Shut up and pull.”

Bet shuts up and pulls. The bench comes free with a sudden lurch and they fall backwards. Alex lands half on top of her, grunting with surprise. His elbow connects hard with her ribs and she swallows hard against the familiar bloom of pain. It's only long practise that keeps her from crying out.

“Yikes.” He levers himself upright, extends a hand down to her. “Alright there?”

Bet reaches up, teeth set against the hurt. “Fine. You weight ten million tonnes.”

“Sorry,” he says, not sounding it, and completes the inanity by striking a champion pose and kissing his biceps, one after the other. “It's all this grass-fed muscle.”

“Get outta here,” Bet tells him, and grabs for the bench again.

With a lot of pushing and pulling, they manage to get it out of the barn and back over to the cabin. Penny's waiting for them with the door held open, expression shuttered.

“For Yoba's sake, Dean,” Alex is saying as they attempt to haul it up onto the deck, “what're you made of, clouds? Put your back into it.”

“I _am_ ,” Bet grits out, jaw set. “Just because I'm not 90% muscle. God.”

“Brawn over beauty, dickhead.” Alex gives one last shove from below and the bench tips and lands solidly on the planks. “You'd be lost without my muscles.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” says Bet, and wipes her hand over her sweaty forehead. She turns to Penny with a rueful grin and finds the other girl watching her, brow slightly furrowed.

“I didn't know you guys knew each other,” Penny says, a trifle wary, as Bet grabs the arm of the bench again and starts dragging it inside, Alex pushing the other end.

“We didn't until the beginning of this week.” Bet's feet slip against the floor as she tries to angle the bench round to sit in front of the TV. “You know what they say, though, not hard to make friends with a moron.” This last clearly teasing, grinning at Alex. He just rolls his eyes and gives the bench one last push to get it into place.

Bench set, he goes straight over to Bet's bedroom door and enters without a word. There's something about him doing it that feels strange. He's never been in there before. But he does it with such indifferent confidence, like of course he'd be allowed. And a strange sort of possessiveness too, like he wants them to know he belongs here, he knows this place. It takes Bet a glance at Penny to twig that it's because of the other girl. She's watching the door where he disappeared, frowning, her expression suggesting she is carefully sorting things through mentally. But because of Penny being Penny, or just because Penny's another person, a new variable in what had become a pleasant equilibrium? Bet can't tell.

“Here.” He comes back out holding all Bet's bedding in his arms, his face barely visible above the sunflower print of the duvet. “I need to get comfortable right now or I'm going to have to throw a tantrum.”

Bet puts all the spinning thoughts aside with grim determination. “God. You drama queen.”

She jumps in to wipe the dust off the bench before she lets him settle the duvet and pillows down. She leaves him to it, since he won't stop going on about the perfect comfort level, and goes over to the kitchen. Penny's standing by the stove, watching the popcorn pop, the lid of the saucepan rattling.

“First time I made popcorn, I forgot the lid,” Bet tells her, smiling shyly. “Thought my mom was going to kill me. It went everywhere.”

“I bet.” Penny lifts a hand and holds the lid down. “Are you close with her? Your mom?”

“We used to be.” Bet busies herself with picking out plates and bowls to avoid delving any deeper into that line of conversation. “You have family in town?”

“Just my mom,” Penny says softly. She doesn't look up from the pan. Bet pauses, her arms full of mismatched crockery. She feels it again, a burst of that familiar sadness, all of it radiating off Penny like she's glowing with it.

But Bet doesn't know her, doesn't have the faintest clue what kind of person she is. Maybe she's reading this all wrong. Maybe Penny's just a little sulky about something, or hormonal. Whatever's got her looking sad, it's definitely not any of Bet's business.

So she leaves her to the popcorn and starts setting the crockery out on the countertop, trying to pretend she doesn't feel like a coward.

  
  


  
  


Bet insists on letting Penny choose the movie, since she doesn't trust Alex's taste even slightly. He grumbles for the first ten minutes, but it's a good choice, as it turns out. Not too frothy and not too intense. About halfway through, Bet glances over at Alex and finds him almost entirely burritoed inside the duvet, just his eyes and hair visible, gaze fixed on the screen. He looks entirely at home and Bet is glad for him, suddenly, so fiercely glad to have found a friend in him that it leaves her almost breathless.

By the end of the movie, he's fast asleep and snoring slightly, so Penny and Bet sneak out onto the deck. Penny wraps her arms around herself, expression pinched.

“Thanks so much for letting me hang out with you guys. That was so nice of you.”

“Sure.” Bet's got a blanket wrapped around herself, but the late winter chill is still digging deep. “Any time, honestly. It's, um, I'm like not very good at making friends? But if you ever want to come over, or, or anything. I'd like that.” The words almost surprise her, coming out. But she means them. The evening has given her the opportunity to see Penny past her pregnancy, to stop her throat from closing up every time her eyes stray downwards. And she likes Penny. She's soft and calm and kind.

Maybe there's a little selfishness in it, too. Penny hasn't mentioned her baby's father even once. And there was a hunted kind of look to her every time the mother and daughter in the movie yelled at each other. Does it make Bet a bad person, to want for once not to be the one in a friendship that needs all the looking after?

“I'd like that too,” Penny admits shyly, looking down. “I'm not very good at making friends either.”

“Oh, cool.” Bet finds herself smiling wider than she expected. “Um, I have to come into Pelican Town, tomorrow. Maybe we could, like, get a cup of coffee or something? Or lunch?”

“I'm tutoring all morning, so I could do some time after three?”

“That works perfectly for me,” Bet tells her, tucking her blanket more closely around herself. “Is the Saloon the best place? I could come to your house instead?”

“No,” says Penny very fast, eyes wide. “It's, um, the Saloon's way nicer. Let's meet there.”

“Sure.” Bet keeps smiling, easy, compliant. Here is the thing that Penny won't brush up against. Bet has so many things of her own she's keeping buried, she's the last person to go digging around in someone else's secrets.

“I should get back,” Penny says now, clutching her purse to her. “Um, will you say bye to Alex for me?”

“Of course. But – should you be walking? Alex could give you a ride, maybe?”

“I don't want to trouble anyone.”

“I'm sure he wouldn't mind.”

Penny gives her a curious look then, sort of measuring. It's the same look she had on earlier, when Alex fished the keys out of Bet's pocket. Bet wonders if this is a look she'll be getting a lot now she and Alex are friends, everybody trying to figure out the precise way they intertwine. She's never lived in a small town before. Never had to work her way through the gossip.

For whatever reason, she blurts out, “We're just friends, you know. I know it might seem like – I just, he reminds me a lot of some friends I had when I was younger. And he's helping me so much with the farm. That's honestly all it is.”

Penny looks down. “You don't have to – I mean, it's none of my business.”

“I know. And I know you wouldn't pry or anything. But I just, I want you to know. I came here to get as far away from a relationship as possible. There's no way I'm looking for a new one any time soon.”

“Broken heart?” Penny says. There's a note of sympathy in her voice Bet can't help latching onto.

“Something like that.”

“Well, I hope it gets fixed.”

“Thanks. Me too.”

Bet tries a couple more times to persuade her to take a lift, but she's insistent, and soon she's disappearing down the track. She calls after her to get her to text when she gets home, since they swapped numbers in advance of their coffee date the next day. Penny turns and lifts a hand, promising, and then the darkness swallows her up.

“Nobody knows who the father is, you know,” Alex says the minute Bet gets back inside. He's sat up on the bench, Dusty in his lap, the duvet pooled around his hips. “Bet you were wondering.”

“It's none of my business.” Bet lets him see the reproach in her face, plonks herself down beside him and reaches to fondle Dusty's ears. “None of yours, either.”

“Everything is everyone's business in Pelican Town,” he tells her, unrepentant. “There's an unofficial pool going. It has to be someone in town, she never goes anywhere else.”

“Oh god.” Bet pokes him in the ribs. “It isn't you, is it?”

“Hey.” He grabs her finger and wiggles it. “Come on, what d'you take me for? I'd own up to it.”

Bet might only have known him for a week, but she feels the truth of that all the way down in her bones. He might be cocky, and often condescending without meaning to be, but he's a decent person. Honourable and loyal.

“I believe you,” she tells him. And then, despite her earlier words, she says, “Who do you think it is, then?”

Alex beams. “Knew you wouldn't be able to resist. I have two bets, and they're very strong ones.” He lifts a hand, two fingers raised, and pushes them down in turn as he announces, “Guess one: Sebastian. That's Robin's son. He's a right nerd, but in high school girls really went for his whole emo thing. Penny's into books and shit, so I guess she'd like him. Guess two: the doctor.”

Bet realises her teeth have clenched; she loosens them as subtly as she can. What does it matter to her if this is true? It's not like she ever had a shot anyway.

“Wouldn't they both own up to it too?” she asks, settling back down against the cushions, hoping she sounds only idly interested.

“Dunno with Seb. Like I said, weirdo. Think he's planning to leave town before long, so he probably wouldn't want to admit to it or he'd be, like, tied down.”

“And the doctor?”

“She's like ten years younger than him. And my nana says he told her he's 'waiting for the right person', so I guess having a kid with Penny would get in the way of that.”

Bet knots her hands into the duvet. “He doesn't strike me as the kind of person who'd dodge the responsibility.”

“Eh. You're probably right.” Alex yawns so widely all his teeth show. “You're betting on Seb, then?”

“I'm not betting on _anyone_. It's none of my business.”

“You keep telling yourself that.” He laughs, then sits upright and stretches, easing out a kink in his neck. Bet watches him do it. She knows what she wants to ask, but she's trying to figure out the urge driving it. Does she actually want to get fucked tonight, or does she just want the company? Just want to not spend another night alone in her bare little cabin, the wooden walls creaking around her, rain plopping onto the roof? Or is it even worse than that – is it the smallest, most pitiable part of herself that craves the oblivion? A part that's almost hoping he'll hurt her, just to take her mind away from Penny and her sad eyes, and the possibility of the doctor having put the child inside her.

“Earth to Bet,” Alex says, and complicates things. “Mind if I crash here? We can get an early start on the weeds beyond the fence.”

“Alright,” her mouth says before she's caught up with it. “You'll have to share the bed with me though, sorry. No couch.”

“What a tragedy.” He leans forward, carefully picks Dusty off the bench and lays him on the floor, then plants both hands between the two of them and comes to within an inch of her face. He blinks at her, open, willing, ready to be pushed away if she isn't up for it.

Bet closes her eyes. She rakes through her feelings, and comes away with a surprising certainty. She could say no, and he would go. He would walk whistling back to his truck and that would be fine. He wouldn't mind, and she wouldn't mind. She doesn't want him to stay just because she doesn't want to be alone. She wants him to stay because she likes him being here. She wants him to stay because she really, really wants to fuck him.

When she closes the last space between them and kisses him, his lips curve up against hers.

“That's how it is, then?” he teases, pulling away briefly. His hair is already dishevelled, his mouth pink.

“Like you weren't planning for this,” she says right back, grinning. “I shaved yesterday. Seems a shame to waste it.”

“Oh, marvellous.” He lifts her up then, as easy as that. There's something about it, being gathered up like a bird, like she weighs nothing. It makes her feel small and protected and safe. So she wraps her arms around his shoulders and keeps kissing him, hard enough that he bumps into the doorframe on his first attempt to navigate into the bedroom and pulls back, yowling.

“Drama queen,” she tells him, then hops out of his arms and pulls him in by his sweatshirt.

  
  


  
  


He fucks into her long and slow, her leg pressed up against his shoulder. Something about the angle is _really_ doing it for her. She can feel her whole body slowly tightening, her nipples stiff, the breath huffing out of her with every thrust.

“Good?” he checks in, looking down, one hand holding her leg up and the other grasping at her hip for leverage.

“Mmhm,” is about all she can manage. Her eyes flutter shut. He makes a sound, half a laugh, and adjusts his grip slightly. Her hips tilt up a little further, and it's impossibly better. His next thrust makes her see stars. It's been so long since she was fucked like this – deeply, properly, with the avid determination to see her come before he does. The time in the barn was good, but this is so much better.

She just about manages to heave out an, “Oh, _fuck_ ,” and he lets go of her leg to grab at her with both hands, driving himself into her harder and faster with every snap of his hips. The coiling goes from a tickle to a rush to a wave, and Bet comes with barely any more warning than that, her back arching, white-hot pleasure blasting through her as Alex keeps fucking her, drawing her orgasm out.

As she catches her breath, she relaxes down into the mattress. She feels unspooled and boneless. Alex is still fucking her, looking far too pleased with himself. Laughing, shaking her head, she pushes herself up on both hands and grabs at him, tweaking a nipple, pressing her teeth just lightly over his pulse point. He shudders out a groan and his thrusts falter and then speed up. She flattens her tongue over his neck, scrapes a nail just lightly over that nipple, and he wraps both arms as tight as he can around her waist and comes into her with a choked-off moan.

His head is searching, so Bet pulls away from his neck and lets him kiss her. It's just like last time. Friendly, familiar. Like sitting next to a fire on a cold night. Like having a best friend.

  
  


  
  


When she wakes up the next morning, it starts off slow. A pleasant floating up out of her dreams, everything soft and comfortable. And then her hand brushes someone else's and she slams into her body. She's out of the bed and against the wall before she understands it, arms clutched around herself, and Alex is fumbling upright, reaching for her, his hair flat on one side.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he says, one hand outstretched, sleep-mussed and bewildered, “are you okay?”

The adrenaline is pulsing through her and now the relief is pushing in, that it wasn't like she thought, that she wasn't back in bed with Dan in that flat in the city, another endless day ahead of her. With the relief comes shame, thick and acrid. She can't help it. She slides down the wall and starts to cry.

“I'm fine,” she splutters, barely able to get the words out, “I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.”

Carefully, slowly, Alex gets up. He brings the duvet with him and lays it over her gently, like he might a frightened horse. Dusty follows him, cringing around from where he was asleep on Alex's side of the bed. When Alex sits down beside Bet, Dusty presses into her too, his solid furry weight against her shins.

“Here.” Alex lifts his arm, makes space for Bet to tuck in under it. She does, still crying, heaving with it. He's warm still. He smells like sleep and sex. “Have I done something? Did I hurt you?”

She shakes her head, helpless to get out anything more than that.

“Okay,” he says, more to himself than to her. “Okay, okay. Well, can I do anything? Can I get you anything?”

She's going to shake her head again, but then she realises what she really needs is for him to be gone, just for a little while. Just so she can get this under control. What a stupid reaction. How far gone she is, to freak out like this so completely.

“Tea,” she chokes out, “cup of tea. Please.”

“Right. Great.” He doesn't need any more prompting than that; frees himself from the duvet and stands up. He says to Dusty, “Stay.” Dusty whines, but stays where he is, sprawled against Bet.

When Alex stands up, he stays looking at her for a moment or two, expression contorted. He looks truly out of his depth, which just makes Bet feel even guiltier. She buries her face in her knees.

By the time he comes back with a steaming cup of tea, Dusty has wormed his way all the way into Bet's lap and she's managed to stop crying. She doesn't meet Alex's eyes as she reaches up to accept the tea.

“I'm really sorry,” she says, her voice thick, “that was insane of me. Class A freak-out.”

He crouches beside her, nervous. “What was all that about?”

“It's a long and stupid story. I'd honestly prefer not to talk about it.”

He looks so relieved, Bet relaxes finally. He's not going to push or pry. He wants to move past this as quickly as she does.

“It's not about me, though,” he clarifies, eyebrows raised.

“Not about you,” she promises, and takes a long gulp of her tea. It's a little too hot, but it helps, loosening her tight chest. “I'll be alright, I swear. Already feeling better. Do you want a shower?”

He hovers for a moment, uncertain, but finally catches her eyes and unearths a grin. It's a little watery, but she appreciates the effort.

“You saying I smell?”

“Yep.” Bet cradles the mug in both hands, letting the warmth leech into her. “So stinky.”

“Guess I'd better shower, then,” he tells her, levering himself up. He stretches, arms up over his head, spine cracking. And then, just like that, he moseys on over to the door and disappears for a shower. Alone again, Bet lets out a trembling breath and presses one hand over Dusty's head. She wishes she was like that – could just take a thing and put it aside, like it never even happened. She's grateful that Alex at least can do it. Already the humiliation of what she did is layering itself over the morning, bright and painful. Maybe if she tries hard, she can forget about it as effortlessly as him.

She goes through the shower after he's done, letting the hot water hammer onto her shoulders. It makes her feel more human. That harrowing burst of terror already feels as distant and impossible as a dream.

She comes out to find Alex has made breakfast, eggs and butter scrambled together in her skillet. He looks at ease in the kitchen, moving around with the confidence of someone who knows exactly what they're doing.

“I didn't expect you to know how to cook.”

He turns around to find her hovering in the doorway and shrugs, grinning. There's no hint he just watched her psych herself halfway into insanity.

“Learned young,” he says, and goes back to the stove.

There's a scratching at the door. Bet goes over to open it and Dusty wanders back in, panting cheerfully. He parks himself at Alex's feet, tongue lolling out, certain that if he just stares long enough, surely some bit of food will fall into his waiting jaws.

“So,” says Alex when they're sat on the bench, balancing their plates of eggs on their laps, “weeds today?”

“Weeds today,” Bet agrees. She's watching him eat, calm and methodical. It's been a long time since she's shared breakfast with anyone. After the sex and the crying and the panic, it's making her feel some kind of way. Raw, like an exposed nerve. But isn't bad, she thinks.

In fact, as Alex catches her looking and grins, his nose wrinkling, she thinks it might even be good. Really fucking good.

She smiles back, and starts eating her own eggs. 


End file.
